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December 2001 Archives
December 31
Yahoo IMvironments
are the latest fad that the company's come up with. It makes your chatting
easier, prettier and more fun - and a lot more bulky and resource hungry. I don't know how many people here actually use Y!, but my guess is this wont take long to disappear.
posted by arnab at 10:29 PM PST - 20 comments
The town of Gander
in Newfoundland, Canada is a town of 10,000 where 6600 airline passengers were diverted after the attacks of September. While hearing a radio story about it on NPR, I was moved to flubbery tears by the outpouring of camaraderie and cooperation by the townspeople and passengers. Happy New Year, Canadians, and everyone else too, after quite a tumultuous year.
posted by readymade at 6:07 PM PST - 15 comments
Wishing you all a happy new year from the GMT zone, specifically, Dublin,
Ireland, where it's now appproximately 10 minutes past the hour!
posted by tomcosgrave at 4:10 PM PST - 14 comments
coming to the stark realization that i will probably be sitting in front of a terminal when the new year arrives i was wondering how any other socially maladjusted people will be spending new year's eve. of course, you can always
watch everyone else have a good time over at earthcam but if there's something more exciting i can point my browser and beer at, please enlighten the group.
posted by boogah at 3:33 PM PST - 37 comments
This year's Oscar race is shaping up to be populated
entirely by dark horses. In the absence of any clear shoo-in nominees, the disputes among Oscar voters (as well as the marketing campaigns mounted by the studios) are growing increasingly heated.
posted by jjg at 2:08 PM PST - 26 comments
By the People, For the People: Posters from the WPA.
From the website at the Library of Congress, the posters
consist of 908 boldly colored and graphically diverse original posters produced from 1936 to 1943 as part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. Of the 2,000 WPA posters known to exist, the Library of Congress's collection of more than 900 is the largest. These striking silkscreen, lithograph, and woodcut posters were designed to publicize health and safety programs; cultural programs including art exhibitions, theatrical, and musical performances; travel and tourism; educational programs; and community activities in seventeen states and the District of Columbia. For examples, see a poster on the health dangers of
Syphilis and one for the play
Alison's House: A Poetic Romance.
posted by moz at 11:28 AM PST - 4 comments
Mean Greenies
I realize MeFi sometimes seems like PetaFilter these days, but
this new ad campaign [pdf] from the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals struck me as sufficently odd to merit discussion. Long story short: it's a big, expensive ad urging you
not to donate money. [more]
posted by Shadowkeeper at 10:35 AM PST - 62 comments
The Universe in One Year
Every year on December 31 since I was in 7th grade I think of something I saw in an episode of Carl Sagan's
Cosmos.
I found this: Imagine that the history of the universe is compressed into one year—with the Big Bang occurring in the first seconds of New Year’s Day, and all our known history occurring in the final seconds before midnight on December 31. Using this scale of time, each month would equal a little over a billion years. Dinosaurs ruled the Earth for almost two hundred million years - from December 25 to December 30 on this time line. Most of our entire written history fits into the last 10 seconds of the year. It's something to think about while watching the ball drop tonight.
posted by stevis at 8:49 AM PST - 28 comments
The Night They Invented Champagne...
Tonight's the night for
Champagne. Meaning French. No other is as appropriate or necessary. If you know nothing - or a lot - about this most pleasant and aphrodisiac of all wines, you should still get more serious about it. The
Champagne Growers' Association has an excellent website where you can learn how to
chill,
open,
serve and properly
taste Champagne. They'll even send you four free, attractive little
notebooks to keep in your cocktail cabinet. The green
roll-down menus are all enlightening and to the point.
But don't think the French have all the experts. There's this amazing American website, called
IntoWine, put up by the
M2 Communications Wine Education Center, which is just as wise and, typically, more complete and snobbish.
Their
Champagne section is faultless. Compare cultures by noting how they
serve Champagne. Check out their full list of Champagne
houses and related
movies.
Happy New Year, MetaFilter!
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:53 AM PST - 28 comments
A Plea For Realism
This is the first time I have seen an on-line or paper eminating from the Arab states and serving the Arab/Muslim community suggest a new approach that is peaceful for bringing about a resolution the the chaos that has marked this past year in that area of the world.
posted by Postroad at 6:13 AM PST - 8 comments
Sacred Commerce?
Funny, I walked daily to work past the World Trade Center, and have been in the Middle East more than once, but it never occured to me to connect the WTC with Islamic architecture until I read this.
posted by MidasMulligan at 5:46 AM PST - 1 comments
Two in a week!
That must be a record or something. Nobody knows where is Argentina going, and the rioters keep making damages in the capital. Nice way to spend the New Year's eve.
posted by Flor at 5:28 AM PST - 10 comments
Prophets of doom
In June 2000, Lynne Palmer, a 69-year-old Las Vegas resident, published her
Astrological Almanac for 2001... On page 95 of the book, buried among advice on the best days to go to the movies and worst days to lend people money, Palmer had written, in an odd combination of the obvious and the prophetic: "Avoid terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001."
posted by raaka at 5:06 AM PST - 23 comments
Before you drink
and think of driving, you should know exactly how drunk you are allowed to be, depending on which US state you're in. The
Blood Alcohol Educator (shockwave) will set you straight for a safe new year. Just put in some info about yourself, head off to the virtual bar to pick your drinks and how fast you'd like to slam them. You'll get stats on how legally drunk you are, tips on how to keep your BAC down, and nuggets of info about your current state. Here's to a safe new year.
posted by mathowie at 1:54 AM PST - 21 comments
December 30
"Bart to the Future", Simpsons Season 11 Episode 13
(airdate 2000-03-19), featured the following quote from a wheelchair-bound Krusty 30-years in the future: "Let's start off with a joke. I got one: What's the difference between Pakistan and a pancake? I don't know any pancakes that were nuked by India! Ha-ha! What? Too soon?"
posted by gojomo at 9:28 PM PST - 14 comments
Um...
can someone explain to me how a parent could do this to their child? Check out some
accompanying links and tell me how this
isn't child porn and why these parents aren't in prison right now.
posted by tsumo at 3:14 PM PST - 54 comments
Taj Mahal camouflaged
The Taj Mahal is to be covered with a '400 metres of khaki, black and green cloth' to protect it from possible Pakistan attacks. Bizarre and sad that it's nescessary, though. Before posting, I noted a link shown on the same page, offering
another solution... Sorry, couldn't resist to post it.
posted by swordfishtrombones at 1:00 PM PST - 31 comments
The Tora-Bora Manuscripts
As soon as I published this journal at Blogger.com its servers were hacked. I believe it is a conspiracy perpetrated by the enemies of the TRUTH, trying to stop me. A lame but amusing hoax? Or dangerous and ancient secrets that will blow things wide open?
posted by y6y6y6 at 9:13 AM PST - 16 comments
An
ancient 3,200-year-old papyrus map has led to the discovery of pharoanic gold mines in Egypt's eastern desert that will give Egypt one of the top 10 gold reserves in the world. The original pharaonic map, which is the world’s earliest surviving geological survey, was discovered in Luxor in 1820 and has since been on display in a Turin museum.
posted by stbalbach at 9:02 AM PST - 10 comments
Band names
are out;
blog names are in. All of us musical inepts who spent more time thinking up band names than actually learning to play an instrument now have a purpose for our great list of names that rock your world, dude! Here's a really brief list of blog names grabbed from
Linkwatcher, any one of which could have been a band name:
Virulent Memes, Grouse, The Dome of the Sky, Underduck, Sixth Dev, Ten Reasons Why, Industrial Technology and Witchcraft, Phester, Hopeless Romantics, Next Generation Degeneration, Being Terran, Hit or Miss, Entropy, Wee David, Kitty Kitty, Inexplicable Fancy Trash, etc etc.
On the flip side, you could use
random band name generators to come up with blog names, too.
Some people compile lists of band names. Of course, some sites
take band names seriously.
What's your best band/blog name ever?
posted by monkey-mind at 7:47 AM PST - 38 comments
So Forsberg is coming back
and it means the Avalance could once again be a force to be reckoned with. Can anyone beat Detroit? And in the East, the Bruins are looking good. I care, but do my fellow nerds? It seems there's a serious dearth of computer geeks that follow hockey. Is the gap between ESPN and ICQ that big? Do any of you other nerds watch hockey, or is it dead?
posted by Samsonov14 at 12:18 AM PST - 30 comments
December 29
Two men are flying a Cessna from South Africa to Alaska.
"When I'm feeling romantic, I like to think of us as a modern-day Lewis and Clark (or maybe Huck and Jim), two guys on a once-in-a-lifetime aerial road trip. But there's more to it than that. Amid the mundane details and daily routine inside the Cessna cabin, I expect there to be unforeseen revelations and epiphanies – about the world seen this unique way and perhaps about ourselves." [check out the ultra-cool map]
posted by skallas at 11:09 AM PST - 6 comments
Learning propper english gramar
ain't gotta suck no longer. Someones made it fun and enjoyable for everybody!
And when you meat someone who can't write good, you'll know why.
This could even be the dearth of the MeFi grammar flames even! (nahhh)
posted by BentPenguin at 10:42 AM PST - 6 comments
Maryland Rescuers Find a Kitten and Look for Justice
"In an act of cruelty that recalls last year's road-rage death of a California pooch named Leo, a driver in Poolesville dropped a 10-week-old kitten into the middle of busy Route 107 on Christmas and then took off. Somehow, the animal was not hit by traffic. But in its fright, it darted toward the curb and into a storm drain. And there it likely would have died if not for the lengthy effort of several do-gooders -- one of whom crawled 30 feet through a storm pipe to grab the two-pound bundle of fur. That's an unquestionably happy ending. For chief rescuer Ellie Truman[e], though, the ending won't be complete until the man who abandoned the kitten so egregiously is identified and charged." (Even the Washington Post loves kitten stories!)
posted by Carol Anne at 8:48 AM PST - 7 comments
December 28
A week before filing for bankruptcy protection, energy giant Enron Corp.
donated $100,000 to the Democratic Party committee that helps Senate candidates, campaign finance reports show. Enron has been talked about
before, so do people think this is an important sum of money, if not why is CNN covering it?
posted by rhyax at 8:39 PM PST - 13 comments
The Solution?...Fly Naked
So you can sneak a bomb in your shoe. The only solution is to fly naked. You can't bring anything on board; it all has to be shipped separately on cargo jet. There has to be an air marshall on every flight -- no in plain clothes (because nobody's in clothes) but sitting in front of the cockpit, heavily armed and ready. It's getting that ridiculous. What can we do?
posted by riley370 at 8:33 PM PST - 23 comments
Pakistan Tells US It May Move Troops:
So what happens to the alliance against terrorism, and recalling 4,000 troops, do they seriously think in a war that number would make a difference, or is all of this a ploy to get the US to back Pakistan in the war against India.
posted by bittennails at 12:12 PM PST - 25 comments
CD prices to drop
due to competition from the net? "(We) believe music software CD prices may soon permanently decline to $9.99 given weak sell-through of new artists and continued Internet piracy that appears unstoppable."
Is there an economic model for competition from piracy pushing prices down? This seems to contradict the rhetoric about the rest of us paying more because of pirates.
posted by NortonDC at 7:39 AM PST - 53 comments
New Year's Resolutions
4 days to go, can't start the year without it, so here goes - yet another one which will make me feel good but I will inevitably break: learn something new by taking all the free seminars at
Fathom, the best learning site I could find. And you?
posted by Voyageman at 4:40 AM PST - 24 comments
December 27
Two new baseball stadiums for New York!
At a time when NYC seems to be barreling towards huge debts, public workers aren't getting raises and the city needs to be rebuilt, the Yankees and the Mets -- two of the richest teams with the highest attendence -- are getting brand new stadiums courtesy of the city budget. Giuliani wants the deal finished as he leaves office.
posted by argybarg at 7:57 PM PST - 45 comments
This might be really untimely investigative reporting or a very slick piece of disinformation to rework
a very crude and obvious earlier attempt to spread more of the same.
Whatever the reason, FoxNews published the story on their website (in 4 parts), and then they mysteriously took it down. Without any explanation.
Meanwhile, none of the other news outlets are going near the story. Except for www.cryptome.org. So, info or disinfo, you make the call...
posted by BentPenguin at 4:12 PM PST - 17 comments
It's That Pesky Skin Color Thing Again.
An Arab-American member of President Bush's security detail was denied passage on an American Airlines flight from Baltimore to Dallas Tuesday evening... "They didn't see an American, they didn't see a law enforcement professional. All they saw was a racial and ethnic profile that they didn't want on their flight." -- NY Times site.
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 10:47 AM PST - 41 comments
This is ODD.
I was reading a flash/videogame forum and clicked this one looking for more video game information. Any info?
posted by Niahmas at 9:45 AM PST - 21 comments
Recidivism being what it is among terrorists, we should
kill 'em all, sez George Will in today's Washington Post. Does America have the stomach to do what its adorable chipmunk-cheeked pundits advise be done? Is he actually suggesting we line up the enemy against a wall and start shooting?
Again?
posted by luser at 9:30 AM PST - 33 comments
WebVerbix
can conjugate verbs for you sixty-four languages, ranging from French and Spanish to Dutch and a variety of creoles. The best part is that it'll do it for free (though you can buy the software and conjugate in 100 languages.) It's sites like these that remind me why I love the Internet.
posted by headspace at 9:01 AM PST - 16 comments
December 26
The BBC are testing out Ogg Vorbis
for audio streaming.
Ogg is a completely Free and open audio codec. This is great news for Ogg Vorbis, as you don't get a much better endorsement than one of the most respected media services trialling your system.
posted by helloboys at 7:56 PM PST - 9 comments
Sometimes, often even, life imitates art. Rarely is it as spot-on as this example.
Recall if you will, actor Robert Downey's character in Oliver Stone's
Natural Born Killers. Compare Downey's character to
this photo.
Now, try not to laugh.
No, really. Be serious, because this picture pretty much sums up
everything thats gone wrong with modern journalism (and does so without even so much as a caption).
posted by BentPenguin at 8:57 AM PST - 17 comments
December 25
"But at some point along the path to discovery, the reader confronts his or her
reading mortality. There's only so much time. And there are so many great books." I must come to grips with this myself, even as I anxiously await the inaugural
book club discussion. I must admit, though, that people like
this [NYT link] make me feel my own "reading mortality" more acutely. (I
wish I could read that much so quickly...)
posted by arco at 11:45 PM PST - 18 comments
India, Pakistan enjoy theatrical proxy war
A ceremony to lower the flags of the two perennially hostile neighbours at Wagah, their only rail and road crossing point, has been transformed into a show of highly stylised aggression, and one which draws huge and noisy crowds to taunt each other.
Better than the real thing, I suppose.
posted by Rastafari at 9:31 AM PST - 26 comments
What is AWCA?
"It’s an illness that can strike at any time, that can affect even the most sensible and rational blogger. It strikes slowly at first — a glance at
The Nation or
Village Voice, a quick peek at what the Berkeley City Council is up to this week — but can develop into a full-bore obsession. Minutes trolling on Indymedia turn into hours, ridiculed websites make their way to the Windows Favorites list, until finally one cannot bear to turn off the computer before seeing the words
quagmire, proportionality, Arab street, root causes, and
“terrorists” (in quotation marks only)."
My name is Steve, and I suffer from AWCA.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 7:42 AM PST - 29 comments
December 24
Joyeux Noël
from Paris ! I hope everyone around here is having a great time with their friends, families and/or relatives, wether you celebrate X-mas or not. Besides being a commercial outrage nowadays, it's a time for giving/sharing, spending time with the loved ones and feeling like a child again. So : "yay !"
posted by XiBe at 6:22 PM PST - 9 comments
"Jingle Bells" is the first Christmas song we learn.
It's the Christmas song no one ever forgets. But when "Jingle Bells" was written in the 1850s by Boston native James Lord Pierpont, it was not a Christmas song. It had nothing to do with the holidays. "Jingle Bells" was what you might call pre-Civil War rock 'n' roll. In its seldom-heard original form, it's about having a flashy vehicle, driving it too fast and using it to pick up girls. (by Larry Katz, Boston Herald--via Fark.com)
posted by Carol Anne at 2:08 PM PST - 3 comments
S-11 Redux: (Channel) Surfing the Apocalypse
So, in the face of our media's shameless propaganda campaign, we have taken it upon ourselves to intuit what the intentions and goals of this war truly are. In what is surely a departure from our traditional NewsVideo format, GNN presents S-11 Redux: (Channel) Surfing the Apocalypse. Culled from over 20 hours of television footage recorded over a one month period and across 13 networks, S-11 Redux is a sound-bite blitzkrieg that challenges the messages we have been fed from our mainstream media and the government it serves. Be warned - this video moves quickly and will require at least two viewings to digest its full impact. You may never be able to look at the coverage of S-11 and its post-impact coverage the same way, ever again
posted by Niahmas at 12:50 PM PST - 31 comments
Why is American architecture so bad?
"American architecture is, as a rule, conventional, bland, and dull. This is true almost across the board: from public buildings sponsored by federal or state governments to commercial buildings; from privately sponsored civic institutions, such as museums and concert halls, to local community centers and religious sanctuaries; from public-housing projects to private housing."
posted by rushmc at 11:26 AM PST - 37 comments
English
It's the language of Metafilter, Internet, eveything. Everybody happy? I'm a native speaker but I don't live in an English speaking country. Apart from the it's inevitable/ I couldn't give a crap, it's my language stuff, is anybody out there ambiguous? (More inside)
posted by Zootoon at 11:17 AM PST - 62 comments
Was Christmas TV really ever all that special?
'Off The Telly' reviews three decades of Christmas Day television in Britain. "It's funny...that Christmas time is actually an excuse for some of the worst TV atrocities of the year to be inflicted upon us. Christmas telly does not equate with quality. And yet, never does TV become a more integral part of our own family or personal routines and traditions. And never are we so receptive to a gathering of disparate middle-of-the-road celebrities and their stale party pieces." And for the ultra-cynic, TV-Go-Home's Charlie Booker presents
an alternative schedule.
posted by feelinglistless at 4:44 AM PST - 17 comments
Restroom Ratings
is a site where you can scope out the possible nastiness of a bathroom before you need to go use it. Most of the rated bathrooms seem to be centered around the Minneapolis, MN area. You can even
send a restroom e-card to your friends (or enemies).
posted by manero at 1:40 AM PST - 11 comments
December 23
Ironic Spam article
Does anyone find it ironic that a NY Times article on the horrors of spam is accompanied by one of those ads that automatically plays annoying music and requires you to find and then click on the off switch every time the page loads?
posted by Poagao at 9:46 PM PST - 8 comments
When do the war powers expire? (LA Times)
With a state of War being used to justify increased security measures, spending bills, unlimited detention and international military action is anybody else uncomfortable with the vagueness of the 'current situation'? How and when can we say we have won and declare it peacetime again?
posted by srboisvert at 7:37 PM PST - 10 comments
State government run amuck --
I'm usually proud to be from Jersey, but what's been going on in Trenton recently with lawsuits to stop acting governors from signing spending bills that the budget can't handle is nothing compared to what's going to happen in January. . . A couple of 2-day governors (one from each party) are going to have their way with the state house, governor's mansions, stationery, and POLITICAL APPOINTEES. . . . A POX ON BOTH THEIR HOUSES!
posted by fpatrick at 7:14 PM PST - 9 comments
Pedestrian Killer
Pointless bloody fun. Zoom around a patch of roadway, squishing people as they try to make it across.
posted by Su at 1:02 PM PST - 14 comments
The meaning of Stuart Adamson
Glenn McDonald: “
Supernatural is death music to me now, in a year when the last thing I need is more contemplation of death. The gift the end of a record gives us, and so too the end of a career or a life, is the opportunity to go back to the beginning again... All my grandparents are dead. The leader of my favorite band is dead. Two of my favorite writers are dead, and one of the others hasn't published a book since 1963. We too will vanish, whether in flames or our sleep or capitulation.... Mean what you are. Do nothing that can be undone, and live or die with the consequences. Live in such a way that if you tell people to stay alive, and then die nevertheless, they will know that what you and they believed together was stronger and truer than anything that merely happened”
posted by joeclark at 10:49 AM PST - 5 comments
Giuliani is Time's Man of the Year.
For a year when the choice would have been hard before 9/11, this seemed like one of the most obvious choices. It's feel-good and he really did do a lot to rally the city. Were you expecting it? Should they have chosen Osama bin Laden or the firefighters?
posted by onthestereo at 6:29 AM PST - 67 comments
Is it me or does this animated
beer ad owe a not inconsiderable debt to this
internet 'classic' (their phrase)?
WARNING! WMV and Flash links respectively, also whilst I'm at it, WARNING! Ladies Beer and Language/Dismemberment respectively.
posted by wassock at 5:32 AM PST - 6 comments
Well what did you expect?
After years of forcing taxpayers to pay for
stuff they hate, the National Endowment for the Arts "has been transformed from a lightning rod and punching bag into a benign institution, averse to controversy and with a significantly different mission than it had a decade ago."
posted by BGM at 1:18 AM PST - 32 comments
December 22
Sexual apartheid
suported by American companies such as McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, and other U.S. firms operating in Suadi Arabia.
Sun City anyone?
posted by Mick at 5:32 PM PST - 46 comments
Lord of the Rings stars get tattooed.
"The nine stars who made up the fellowship in the blockbuster movie trilogy were tattooed with the same symbol by Wellington tattooist Roger Ingerton at his Roger's Tatooart studio. Sunday News can reveal the symbol is a number nine in Elvish - a language spoken in the films."
And no, that isn't a spelling mistake. They got inked by at a tattoo parlour that seems to be missing a 't' in the name.
posted by animoller at 5:23 PM PST - 16 comments
It's not on any of the websites yet, but apparently a man with a fake passport, and fuse-activated bombs for shoes, was on an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami.
They stopped the man before the bomb went off, as they smelled the match and saw the fuse being lit.
The plane is now down just nearby me, in Logan airport in Boston.
Is this a random incident, or an example of things to come? I need to baord a plane sometime after Christmas, and I'm beginning to get concerned.
posted by christian at 2:14 PM PST - 35 comments
Interesting claim -
the military's investigators say that the Red Cross buildings which were bombed on October 25th were not marked and that the military had not been given their coordinates as claimed. Has anyone found more information about this?
posted by adamsc at 1:47 PM PST - 1 comments
FBI warns Microsoft XP users
"The FBI is urging computer users to unplug and don't play when it comes to addressing serious security flaws found in Microsoft's new Windows XP program."
"Microsoft admitted this week that there are several serious glitches in the new software. "
Really?
posted by headlemur at 12:40 PM PST - 24 comments
Model health law empowers states.
"Patients could be forced to take medicines or receive vaccines for contagious diseases that pose a public health threat, such as smallpox, under the model law." (originally published in Boston Globe, but that link is now gone)
posted by kat at 12:31 PM PST - 2 comments
Enron and India: is there more dirt hiding here?
Enron's monstrous failure sure seems to have been triggered --or at least propelled-- by the fallout between them and India over the $3B Dabhol Power Plant near Mumbai that Enron backed out of earlier this year. Maybe it's just a coincidence...but does anyone else think there's more here than just bad business between Enron and India?
posted by blackholebrain at 10:56 AM PST - 3 comments
Taliban Defeat Revives Talk of Trans-Afghan Oil Pipeline.
What are the real objectives of the war in Afghanistan? Could they include a
Trans-Afghan Oil Pipeline? The new U.S. envoy to Kabul (and broker of the new Afghan government accord),
Zalmay Khalilzad, was a former consultant to
Unocal (and liaison to the Taliban, among others) when they wanted to build a pipeline through Afghanistan in the 1990s.
Could the U.S. be taming wild territory for the construction of "the new Silk Road," as the multi-billion-dollar pipeline is allegedly called?
posted by busbyism at 10:19 AM PST - 11 comments
December 21
Winter Olympics budget nearly $2 billion!
Sydney's 2000 Summer Games cost $1.97 billion, The Atlanta Games in 1996 cost $605 million, while the Summer Games in Los Angeles in 1984 cost $75 million.
Congress got a wakeup call today for just how expensive it is to host the Olympics.A new government analysis shows the federal tab for the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City will cost taxpayers about $1.4 billion. “How many important public safety projects and other programs in other cities were postponed or canceled so that these cities could put on an Olympics?” asked Senator John McCain.
Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt spoke of the games as a chance to bring the world together.
"The world needs events like this," he said. "Good has always been the target of evil, but this is an event of such importance that we can transcend the events of September 11th."
posted by Mack Twain at 11:14 PM PST - 16 comments
FBI Declines to Release Hijack Flight Cockpit Tape
"While we empathize with the grieving families, we do not believe that the horror captured on the cockpit voice recording will console them in any way,'' [an FBI spokesman] said. While the FBI claims they need to keep the information secret due to a criminal investigation, partial transcripts of the tape have shown up
in Newsweek. If the FBI can leak to Newsweek, surely they could get the family members to sign a confidentiality agreement and let them in on the secret too, no?
posted by hitsman at 8:43 PM PST - 76 comments
"Why do so many young Americans end their own lives?"
With so much attention focused on understanding why
Islamic youths are so driven to suicide, this article I ran across about U.S teenagers really hit me hard: "The suicide rate for Americans aged between 15 and 24 tripled between 1950 and 1994.....but when it comes to working out why young people end their lives, much of the clarity of the research disappears."
posted by Voyageman at 4:04 PM PST - 50 comments
Amazon spamming search engines?
Looking around for reviews on Cooper tires, I came across 2 links in the top 20 search results on Google for sites that look legitimate, but are actually redirect pages to Amazon.com (which doesn't even sell auto tires!). What's going on here? Since when is it legitimate for large corporations to spam search engines!??
posted by yarf at 12:05 PM PST - 43 comments
ECMA ratifies C# as standard.
In other news, Microsoft eats Sun's lunch. As Robert Cringely
puts it: "Now Java begins its slow decline as C# becomes dominant. I don't want it to be this way, but it deserves to be this way." Does it?
posted by gazingus at 9:14 AM PST - 29 comments
Making plans for 2008
It's the feel good story of the day. A 12 year-old German school girl gets her place in the Guinness Book of Records for her tounge.
"I'm just proud that now people everywhere can read about me and my tongue."
[via BoingBoing]
posted by DragonBoy at 8:20 AM PST - 32 comments
Two boozy
British Airways staff face disciplinary action for drunken and abusive antics in first class on a flight to London
posted by scotty at 8:03 AM PST - 3 comments
So you think the expansion of the universe is accelerating?
Think again! (Contains links to full paper in .pdf etc.)
posted by stuporJIX at 7:03 AM PST - 2 comments
There is growing evidence that
Somalia may be the next target in the "war on terrorism". Let's hope that the military doesn't repeat the same mistakes it made in
the last intervention in Somalia chronicled in the book Black Hawk Down. All of this is great news for the upcoming movie based on said book. And you can't buy marketing like that.
Or can you?
posted by euphorb at 12:24 AM PST - 15 comments
December 20
Bizarre new species of deep sea squid
- Yes, you may have read about it earlier, but this link is a photo of one of the
strangest new species to be discovered in a long time. Seventeen feet of weirdness 10,000 feet below the surface. It's cool that we can still find new alien life forms without yet venturing into space.
posted by kokogiak at 11:47 PM PST - 34 comments
BlogBack
RIP, November 16th.
SnorComments: RIP, about a week later, due to a massive migration of BlogBack's deserting rats. With the blogging community reaching critical mass, is it possible for a remotely-hosted comments service to survive the bandwidth bludgeoning?
posted by tweebiscuit at 10:56 PM PST - 37 comments
Covering for our "oil buddies"
It seems there were some choice statements about Saudi support for Osama's terrorism that were removed from last week's "party tape". Wouldn't want to mess with Bush/Cheney's oil pals, now would we?
posted by owillis at 7:06 PM PST - 27 comments
Famous Name Changes
What a turn off when you find out Paul David Hewson, Vincent Damon Furnier, William Michael Albert Broad are your favorite rockers (inside)
posted by Voyageman at 3:20 PM PST - 18 comments
eek!
at+t broadband cable units to be bought by comcast. this means chicago cable service will shift to its third owner in two years (at+t broadband having purchased prime cable just last year, and having just gotten cable modems back online from the excite@home failure two weeks ago). anyone have any clues about the ramifications of this purchase?
posted by patricking at 12:46 PM PST - 21 comments
ADHD/ADD and Drug Abuse
They found a link between children with common 'behavioral' disorders and drug abuse later in life. Well what do you expect when we teach kids that the best way to deal with a problem is to turn to drugs (ritalin).
posted by crackheadmatt at 12:33 PM PST - 27 comments
Muslims blast CNN polling techniques.
CNN apologizes and offers up an excuse to justify act. But is poll (1) out of place, (2) unjustified, (3) a fair assignment to get some interesting and/or useful information? (4) an overreaction on the part of those who would control what their children should and should not know and see.
posted by Postroad at 12:00 PM PST - 20 comments
The Worst Committee Charge Ever
A rather interesting Story from Normal, Indiana, where after an "animated" 1 1/2-hour
meeting Wednesday, the Normal library board voted 5-1 to form a committee to
develop suggestions in the wake of a dispute over a board member
breast-feeding her toddler at the library during story time.
They say about two dozen people were in the audience, some passionately
explaining the importance of breast-feeding, including in public, and it gets waaay funnier.
And, no, I am not making this up.
posted by Blake at 11:04 AM PST - 48 comments
Microsoft's newest version of Windows....
billed as the most secure ever, contains several serious flaws that allow hackers to steal or destroy a victim's data files across the Internet or implant rogue computer software. The company released a free fix Thursday.
A Microsoft official acknowledged that the risk to consumers was unprecedented because the glitches allow hackers to seize control of all Windows XP operating system software without requiring a computer user to do anything except connect to the Internet.
posted by bkdelong at 10:30 AM PST - 60 comments
The Life of an Indian-American Teenage Girl.
A friend sent me this link and I felt quite sad reading it. Agreed, the teen years are cruel to everybody. But, it seems like the unique constraints that are placed on member of a minority community(especially with first-generation parents) can uniquely exacerbate the angst. I was particularly taken by one statement- "Although you have the ideals and values of an American, you look like an Indian". What advice would you give this sixteen-year-old?
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy at 9:08 AM PST - 16 comments
The Dark Side
of the Washington National Cathedral. Is this real? If so, why would they put an icon of evil on the outside of this place, "intended for national purposes, such as public prayer, thanksgiving, funeral orations, etc.,and assigned to the special use of no particular Sect of denomination, but equally open to all."
posted by zanpo at 8:32 AM PST - 22 comments
Argentina Declares State of Siege.
After a prolonged national strike (the 8th in two years), protests due to social tensions, violence, and looting have broken out, and in response a state of siege allows for "authorities the right to suspend constitutional guarantees such as the right to assemble and travel freely, while giving police greater powers to make arrests." What effect will this have on South American stability? On worldwide financial markets?
posted by mathowie at 12:07 AM PST - 23 comments
December 19
Boring or explicit?
Do you want actual specific directions, or just gentle guidance when you cook? As a poor and nervous cook, I want everything spelled out as much as possible, but Laura Calder wants flavor. (salon link.)
posted by stoneegg21 at 11:26 PM PST - 16 comments
The New McCarthyism
This is so scary. It doesn't seem like anything more than intimidation, but, that's now. What will happen next?
posted by bas67 at 9:39 PM PST - 32 comments
Alt.Xmas.Music.Lyrics.
I've never been accused in the past of only posting serious news item type links - so just to prove that i'm no stick-in-the-mud here is a fun link. It apparently requires no shockwave plugins..... ladies and gentlemen--and especially you cosmopolite European members--I give you, after a wee scroll down and download....
Walking Round In Women's Underwear!! please enjoy this during work hours.
posted by y2karl at 6:29 PM PST - 8 comments
"It seems that for success
in science and art, a dash of autism is essential."
But now the techies in Silicon Valley who prospered with that
dash are having children with far more pronounced problems. Is having too many shy programmers in one spot the equivalent to pissing in the gene pool?
posted by hellinskira at 3:41 PM PST - 31 comments
Say goodbye to Bleem.
If you don't know, Bleem made emulator software that allowed you to play Playstation games on another console system or your PC. Their 'farewell' is kind of funny in a sad way.
posted by Sal Amander at 11:44 AM PST - 6 comments
Proof that there are some brilliant teenage girls out there.
This robotic rescue device was created by a couple of teenaged twin sisters, no less. Just imagine what these two will accomplish by the time they reach adulthood. The Craig sisters make excellent alternative role models to the likes of Britney and Christina. You go, girls.
posted by jonmc at 11:10 AM PST - 24 comments
Sightless dining.
The world of the sightless is a world I don't often explore. In high school, I had two classmates who were brothers and both sightless. I was amazed at the "tricks" they used to cope in day-to-day tasks we take for granted. Dining at
Blindekuh (Swiss German for blind man's bluff), where you
eat in complete darkness, would be quite an 'eye-popping' experience. There's a four month waiting list for a table.
posted by JISH at 11:01 AM PST - 8 comments
Stickers.
Dozens of them, along with posters and "mallen," are archived on this dutch page. (The site uses frames, so you might want to click on the english version of the news there on the site;
otherwise. Found via
alt.sense.)
posted by moz at 9:22 AM PST - 2 comments
Arafat: We are all martyrs
Three days ago, Arafat declared that violence and terror mujst stop. Then Saudi Arabia called him a turn-coat. Now Arafat calls for massive martydom for Palestinians.
posted by Postroad at 9:02 AM PST - 34 comments
Oooooh! Look! Bones!!!!
Ladies and Gentlemen, in conjunction with
George Stetton I am able to bring you, for your amusement and delight, the
hand held Sonic Flashlight. You should visit his
homepage. He does
poetry and
music too.
I don't know what you want this christmas but this has just gone into my top ten.
This will be my last post for a while as I'm off on holiday so have a good
christmas y'all.
jingle jingle etc.....
posted by Spoon at 9:00 AM PST - 1 comments
pressplay
launches today. The service will charge people a monthly subscription fee to download and stream digital music, launched through its Web distribution partnerships with Yahoo, MSN Music and Roxio. A free 14 day trial is available.
posted by riffola at 8:13 AM PST - 29 comments
Homebody/Kabul
Kushner play opens in New York, has controversial subject matter.
"It's a mixed blessing to have written a play about a country with which one's own country has gone to war at the moment it opens"
posted by asok at 7:28 AM PST - 2 comments
Russia is gunning to arm the world.
"Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov highlighted Russia's eagerness to crank out weapons on a recent whirlwind tour of Latin America in a trip that showed the country is aggressively expanding its focus from longtime buyers such as China and India to whole continents like South America and Africa."
I know all countries, my own included, deal arms but the upbeat tone of this article gives me the creeps...
posted by johnboy at 7:17 AM PST - 5 comments
Farm Subsidy Web Site Sows Discord:
"Suppose you could go to a Web site, type in the names of co-workers--or maybe your boss--and find out how much money they make. Be honest--you would. And farmers, it seems, are no less curious than the rest of us. Since its public debut on Nov. 6, a new
Internet-accessible database that ranks farmers by name according to the amount of federal subsidies they receive has recorded 10.1 million searches. The payments often constitute the bulk of farmers' income, and many of the hits have been by farmers eager to know how they compare with the guy growing corn or soybeans down the road."
(Washington Post story, which C-SPAN pointed me to.)
posted by Carol Anne at 6:31 AM PST - 20 comments
Maine man hits moose
at high speed on I-95, three other people die. Once again, the Wheel of Fate is a steering wheel, and the story a warning to all Good Samaritans out there.
posted by lelilo at 12:31 AM PST - 19 comments
What is the future of online news.
Will subscription eventually win through? Is there a viable business model that will allow independent publishers (such as Salon) to survive, or will we see further media consolidation? Where does blogging fit into this spectrum?
posted by RobertLoch at 12:24 AM PST - 9 comments
December 18
Your tax dollars at work?
Apparently the
FAA is paying $50 a click to make sure that Americans are well informed passengers. What ever happened to Public Service Announcements? Anyone want to buy a $200 screwdriver?
posted by shoepal at 6:21 PM PST - 11 comments
The Smithsonian takes a look at
Paint by Number kits and asks for submissions of your own memories.
posted by Su at 4:38 PM PST - 6 comments
The Press vs. Al Gore
How lazy reporting, pack journalism and GOP spin cost him the election (If you don't believe that the 5 Justices hijacked the election)
Still not over it, BTW.
posted by Rastafari at 10:58 AM PST - 71 comments
Mumia Abu-Jamal's death sentence thrown out
Surprised I haven't seen this one up, even the story's just now hitting the news sites. Wonder what this portends. Um, maybe the American justice system works OK after all, even if justice comes slowly? Or did all the pressure (and time too, maybe) help advocates build a good case? What?
posted by raysmj at 10:42 AM PST - 68 comments
The No Child Left Behind Act
is probably the most sweeping educational reform to pass in a long time and it seems to be pretty bipartisan in
its content, it passed the Senate today and Bush will be signing it into law. Holy cow, have the politicians
done something right for a change?
posted by owillis at 10:11 AM PST - 30 comments
Have a favorite vehicle?
Looking for a late night, post-office party romp, well keep an eye out for the Spanish or Italian gent in his Porsche Boxter, or the Chesire lady in her Volkswagen Beetle. Be sure to stay clear of stick shifts and men from Southeast England.
posted by Voyageman at 9:20 AM PST - 20 comments
Geraldo caught lying
about his exploits in Afghanistan.
Rivera reported in a Dec. 6 piece that he (was)
standing on the "hallowed ground" in Afghanistan where "friendly fire took so many of our, our men and the mujahedeen yesterday." (later)
admitted that he was several hundred miles from the site.
It seemed awfully strange how Geraldo was always where "the action" was in a country that large. What do you think Fox will do about this? Should he be fired?
posted by revbrian at 8:53 AM PST - 28 comments
Quality link.
Ladies and Gentlemen, May I present to you some
FLASH based Kung Fu Fun. Tune up your
one inch punch (Surely a great name for a christmas drink...) I thank you.
posted by Spoon at 8:50 AM PST - 7 comments
Cure for the cold?
Is this really worth it? If all it does is "make a runny nose completely clear up a day sooner than usual," it hardly seems worth burdening your system with another drug. Seems like a ridiculous waste or research effort to me. But I guess there is money to be made, even from inefficacious drugs.
posted by SteveS at 8:19 AM PST - 2 comments
This
unsettled me more than
this. Or maybe it's a case that she has flushed any true happiness down the toilet by being so devoted to work, that it's a good thing. The jury is out for me, but not for some rapscallion who has bid a quarter of a million.
posted by Frasermoo at 5:17 AM PST - 31 comments
A flood of homeless at city shelters. '"I think that there must be a greater segment of our population that has
tenuous connections to family and friends, and therefore has fewer resources to fall back on when something very bad happens like when they lose their job," he said.' How can there be so many people, who have no one to count on? Are we getting some serious payback from the nuclear family society?
posted by mmarcos at 2:50 AM PST - 32 comments
Alter Ego.
This is a nifty little game that allows you to examine how you came about being the person you turned out to be. You begin the game at birth, progressing through numerous choices until death. Your success at the game depends on the choices you make. How close to reality does this game life come?
(It's not actually a
little game, but it does allow you to come back to where you left off if need be.)
posted by digital_insomnia at 2:27 AM PST - 20 comments
December 17
Rufus Thomas 1917-2001
Since the 11th of September, I've left the radio off a great deal of the time, so it was only today, while listening to Terry Gross's
Fresh Air, that I heard Rufus Thomas had died. A performer since he was child comedian and tap dancer with the Rabbit's Foot Minstrels, he also was
a famous dj on WDIA in Memphis, the first all-black radio station format in the country, recorded
Bear Cat, an answer song to Big Mama Thornton's
Hound Dog that was an early hit for Sam Phillips' Sun Records and enjoyed a brief second career as the World's Oldest Teenager--singing
Walkin' The Dog and
Funky Chicken and
many duets with daughter Carla--for
Stax Records. From minstrel show to medicine show to dj to elder statesman of Memphis soul, his life and career spanned history. I, for one, will miss him.
posted by y2karl at 8:40 PM PST - 10 comments
Tom Green prooves he's a freak yet again
by divorsing Drew Barrymore. I'm not saying that Drew's a goddess, but anyone who flashes David Letterman on TV is okay in my book. Perhaps this crushing blow to his psyche will keep Tom from writing/staring in another movie like "Freddy Got Fingered."
posted by rev- at 7:19 PM PST - 33 comments
Plastics! A new revolution in packaging,
"By some measures, films made of metallocene-based polyethylenes can have two to three times the tensile strength, five times the impact strength, and twice the tear strength of a traditional polymer. That allows users to make much thinner films and parts, saving on everything from plastic resin to transport costs."
posted by kliuless at 4:31 PM PST - 1 comments
Steaks for Roky. King, the drummer for the
Butthole Surfers hasn't eaten a steak since 1981. He's ready to eat one (with anyone who wants to come along) and video tape it if he gets enough money. All proceeds go to the Roky Erickson Trust. (For those who don't recognize the name,
Roky, as the leader of the
13th Floor Elevators, is one of the progenitors of Texas psychedelia and has had a hard time of it since then.)
posted by mccreath at 12:19 PM PST - 7 comments
Anoto - wireless handwriting.
it might turn out to be not that popular
this christmas, but the anonto pen has the potential to become a
big hit in 2002. just imagine you would never have to use your palm again. or imagine you lose your palm... and you really don't take. because the magic is in the pen!
posted by HeikoH at 12:14 PM PST - 23 comments
Looks like
Samsung is having some interesting
problems with translation. I especially like "This elegant phone can check women's Pink Schedule & Calorie that it helps you to be a woman of sense. It has Voice Dialing funtion.(sic)" What is a Pink schedule?
posted by rhyax at 10:54 AM PST - 26 comments
He does return favors,
but how does it affect the workers? Eugene Scalia is President Bush's nominee for Labor Department solicitor. Scalia is one of nine children of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who was a driving force behind the court ruling that stopped the counting of disputed presidential votes in Florida last year.
posted by semmi at 8:42 AM PST - 11 comments
Commencement speech about civil liberties
drowned out by hecklers. When the publisher of the Sacremento Bee's speech moved to topics regarding racial profiling, liberty, and the war on terrorism's effect on each, the friends and family of the students started stomping and clapping and making a nuisance, so much so that she couldn't continue. The speech, in its entirety, will be
posted soon.
via Drudge
posted by taumeson at 7:47 AM PST - 38 comments
"It wasn't pleasant, but it wasn't World War III"
Watch the Browns/Jaguars game? Maybe it was a bad call, but throwing plastic bottles
full of beer? Anybody who knows me knows I speak out loudly and firmly against the ridiculous sports culture we have in this country. This incident makes me ashamed to be a Clevelander, even a transplanted one. What is it that gets people this riled up and stupid?
posted by starvingartist at 6:43 AM PST - 120 comments
National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice -- concert pianist, figure skater, Stanford University Provost, speaker of 4 languages -- should be the poster child for Black achievement in the 21st Century. So why is she largely ignored, if not outright scorned, by the Black community? Could it be because she's
a Republican?
Who's stirring up this pot? Some conservative like O'Reilly, Limbaugh, North? Nope, just a
liberal Black female newspaper columnist.
posted by pardonyou? at 5:53 AM PST - 46 comments
White Rap Revisited:
Following up on last month's discussion, here's the reader blowback from "N. Bedford Crouch's"
article, featuring confirmation of the put-on and a tip of the pen to Metafilter.
posted by ryanshepard at 5:30 AM PST - 2 comments
December 16
Tilda Swinton: Action Heroine
Who’s next among alabaster-complected redhead action heroines – Julianne Moore? “In the end, what ensures our fixation on the screen is Tilda, Tilda, Tilda. Has she been pumping iron or what? Previously known for her glacial composure, here she’s virtually an action hero”
posted by joeclark at 2:47 PM PST - 14 comments
December 15
Danger!
Sex! Romance! From the early 1900s and seemingly hitting their height of popularity in the '40s (during WWII) pulp novels had heroes doing "manly", heroic things like "smashing the Axis" and evading the charms of villainous vixens. Witness:
Doc Savage, Man of Bronze or
The Shadow (Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?
Not Alec Baldwin.) Pulps also explored more subversive elements,
like lesbianism. The tradition seems to live on in modern times with
Remo Williams (The Destroyer).
posted by owillis at 11:01 PM PST - 8 comments
Mickey Kaus
gives both the
New York Times and
Opinion Journal a good dressing down in respect to their claims that the Bin Laden Video (
transcript) did not mention the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. He points out
'But what's this reference to the 9/11 Bin Laden "operation against America" being "in revenge for the children of Al Aqsa"? That wouldn't be a reference to the Al Aqsa mosque, would it? And, gee, where is that mosque again? Oh, it's on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem...' Poor reporting or media manipulation? Regardless, from what he says about the NYT journalist, she has certainly got a lot of explaining to do.
posted by RobertLoch at 9:32 PM PST - 3 comments
17th Floor:
Does anyone remember when Patrick shut down his picture archive? Does anyone
remember the picture archive? Oh, the topless porn. ....but
Iuma is still around from that era. Lets reminisce.
posted by tomplus2 at 7:52 PM PST - 7 comments
"Next week, MPP is suing the government in federal court,
arguing that it is our constitutional right to run a medical marijuana ballot initiative in the District of Columbia. If our lawsuit is successful, MPP will be permitted to circulate petitions on the streets of D.C. this spring, for the purpose of placing our medical marijuana measure on the November 2002 ballot."
posted by wfrgms at 6:59 PM PST - 6 comments
Throwing Yourself Down a Flight of Stairs:
How to do it, and why - "taking a dive down a flight of stairs is a conscious decision to engage yourself with with your surroundings by slamming your body against it. it's funny looking, it's painful, but for 5 brief seconds you see nothing but pure moment."
posted by ryanshepard at 3:13 PM PST - 20 comments
Is it just me or does
AdCritic.com suck now? I remember a year or two ago it was a great place to check out the latest, funniest commercials. It's been months now since I've even been able to successfully view a commercial there, and their Top 10 Lists never change -- and usually only feature ads that contain allusions to women's underwear.
Did "new management" take over?
posted by robbie01 at 2:19 PM PST - 16 comments
Project SANTA
This game wasted a good two hours at work yesterday. It's a flash game, but with 70's gaming appeal.
I played it so much I finally found the
easter egg, supposedly the site of its "creator." It's on level three, click the moon. A
Christmas game with an
Easter egg, I dunno.
posted by lheiskell at 8:46 AM PST - 2 comments
Redubbing 'Shrek'.
The DVD will feature a new technology that lets you overdub 12 scenes featuring Shrek, Donkey, Princess Fiona and other characters from the hit summer movie. The Shrek's ReVoice technology will even sync your voice so that it matches the lip movements of the characters as they speak in the film.
But can you make them swear at each other?
posted by stuporJIX at 4:18 AM PST - 6 comments
All sorts of delicious ethical issues here:
Slate's guide to buying a term paper online. One of Slate's recommendations: "a smart but horribly lazy student could choose to put his effort into editing instead of researching and writing: Buy a mediocre paper that's done the legwork, then whip it into shape by improving the writing and adding some carefully chosen details." (Perhaps most revealing and disturbing aspect of the article is how the judges explain how they grade horrible papers -- an "utterly meaningless" essay earns a C- and another paper which deserves an F would earn the phrase "please come see me" because they don't dispense Fs at Columbia.)
posted by palegirl at 1:17 AM PST - 34 comments
The US dedication to blocking peace.
“It was the second time in less than a year that the United States had used its veto power to effectively kill a resolution that would create a monitoring mechanism for the protection of Palestinian civilians.”
posted by raaka at 12:19 AM PST - 31 comments
December 14
"The Christmas truce was the last twitch of the 19th Century. By that, I mean it was the last public moment in which it was assumed that people were nice, and that the Dickens view of the world was a credible view." --
Paul Fussell
The Christmas Truce of 1914 is an interesting footnote in history where German and British soldiers stopped fighting and fraternized in the middle of the battlefield. Some witnesses have claimed that enemy soldiers played a friendly
game of soccer.
The events have since been chronicled in
print,
song, and on
film.
posted by MattS at 9:47 PM PST - 4 comments
Mmm Mmm Good.
It should not be surprising kids like the stuff. Dried nasal discharge is largely composed of complex sugars, sodium and water -- the same ingredients as most junk foods. Except it is healthier!
posted by hellinskira at 2:36 PM PST - 10 comments
Watch where you link.
The recent court findings in the DeCSS case apparently included the ruling that linking to a site containing illegal material -- even if it's just to report that fact to others -- is not protected as free speech (and possibly illegal).
[NYTimes link; login: metafi/metafi]
posted by mattpfeff at 12:12 PM PST - 7 comments
What do Greenspan, Enron and the number 11 all have in common?
Economist and NYT colimnist Paul Krugman notes with not too much irony that "Just one month ago the James A. Baker III Institute presented Alan Greenspan with its
Enron Prize." (a big wince over regretable timing, and the emphasis is mine)
No big conspiracy here, but the general thrust of Krugman's
column (NYT link) is that somethings got to give if things are to again get real (good). Lots of interesting under-reported economic factoids in the article make for enlightening reading.
posted by BentPenguin at 11:18 AM PST - 3 comments
Coincidence Design
- "You can't stalk her... but we can." For around $80,000, you can hire a team of investigators to arrange a chance meeting between you and the girl of your dreams. They will find out everything there is to know about her before you meet, and they claim she'll never know that it wasn't just fate (unless YOU tell her). Are they serious?!? (via
saranwarp)
posted by lnicole at 11:15 AM PST - 21 comments
Colorgenics
forms a profile based on your choice of colors from a given color spectrum. Accurate? I thought so. So how much does mood affect how you respond to colors, and how much do colors affect your mood?
posted by mikhail at 10:54 AM PST - 29 comments
NBC to begin broadcasting hard liquor ads
- so it seems that in a depressed advertising environment, priorities begin to shift. Smirnoff vodka is set to go first. The rules: Ads are to be broadcast only after 9 pm, only after the advertiser spends four months broadcasting a "responsible drinking" campaign, and "no consumption of alcohol can be depicted in the ads and that no active professional athletes may used in the ads either". Also "85% of the audience for any show must be at least 21-years old and the actors in the ads must be at least 30 years old."
posted by kokogiak at 10:51 AM PST - 15 comments
Sprawl is Good Defense
"It's a pretty good rule of military thumb that the greater the concentration of value, the more attractive the target... To keep things safe, you need to spread things out." The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian should begin moving their collections out of NYC and Washington,D.C. Now. Talented, intelligent people and people with irreplaceable skills should go next. Re-locate to the Great Plains.
posted by Faze at 9:48 AM PST - 11 comments
Google Catalog Search
uses Google technology to search thousands of scanned mail-order catalogs, from industrial adhesives to designer clothing and gourmet food.
posted by danec at 7:56 AM PST - 33 comments
Where are the Women?
The western media has seen an uncharacteristic deficiency of women's voices in the wake of September's events. Can this be attributed to a "war time" atmosphere? It's certainly not due to a lack of women whose lives have been effected.
posted by Fenriss at 6:26 AM PST - 17 comments
LaydOff
is from former employees of Enron, saying that they "would like to be the forum to expose financial and cultural abuses of corporate power by providing apparel to express our distaste for apparent unethical and unwanted behavior." Right now they're just selling t-shirts.
Ted's Turnovers was another (more vitriolic) site started by laid off workers.
posted by owillis at 6:16 AM PST - 9 comments
December 13
US Surgeon General: Lose some weight, already
Overweight and obesity may not be infectious diseases, but they have reached epidemic proportions in the United States. . . Approximately 300,000 deaths a year in this country are currently associated with overweight and obesity . Left unabated, overweight and obesity may soon cause as much preventable disease and death as cigarette smoking.
posted by raysmj at 7:45 PM PST - 35 comments
Do you dream of living on a secluded island surrounded by all of the
ice cream you could eat? Here is your
chance! And have you ever heard of anyone actually winning one of these essay contests?
posted by Dinzie at 1:51 PM PST - 13 comments
"New York City/Home, Sweet Home":
The New York Observer brings out a terrific, jam-packed issue. (
Articles by Tom Wolfe, Janet Malcolm, Cynthia Ozick, Bruce McCall, Clay Felker, Stephen Jay Gould and many others. Christy Turlington and Michael Bloomberg even!)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 9:47 AM PST - 12 comments
Promises
"What is it really like to live in Jerusalem? PROMISES offers touching and fresh insight into the Middle East conflict when filmmakers Shaprio, Goldberg and Bolado travel to this complex and charged city to see what seven children — Palestinian and Israeli — think about war, peace and just growing up." airs tonite
(check your local listings) i've seen a few POV documentaries before and they were pretty good.
posted by kliuless at 8:41 AM PST - 3 comments
Prince Charles attacks soaring egos of skyscraper architects
"Prince Charles also called for the squares beneath skyscrapers to contain real public amenities such as restaurants and shops instead of incomprehensible pieces of art."..."what [the American novelist] Tom Wolfe entertainingly described as 'a turd in every plaza'."
Does plaza art provide anything for you but direction landmarks? Are there any that you
like/
hate-d (now) ? I enjoy seeing large works
here, but also enjoy coming across a nice
city piece by surprise.
posted by HTuttle at 2:38 AM PST - 32 comments
December 12
The Nash equilibrium
So at the present time I seem to be thinking rationally again in the style that is characteristic of scientists. However this is not entirely a matter of joy as if someone returned from physical disability to good physical health. One aspect of this is that rationality of thought imposes a limit on a person's concept of his relation to the cosmos....from John F. Nash Jr.'s autobiography for the 1994 Nobel Prize for Economics.
posted by riley370 at 11:22 PM PST - 8 comments
McCarthyism Watch:
"The fact that they asked for anything but flag stamps did raise a question for the clerk." At which point do the anecdotes about irrational patriotism and paranoia add up to a genuine cultural shift? I mean,
stamps?
posted by muckster at 10:04 PM PST - 53 comments
Babs knew!
Look out Miss Cleo, here comes Miss (insert appropriate Barbara Streissand insult here).
posted by adrober at 8:40 PM PST - 15 comments
Cloning is not monkey business.
According to this article there is something fundamentally amiss in the cloning of primates. Do I sense some hot air going out of the balloons of the guys who predicted they'd be cloning humans in the near future?
posted by MAYORBOB at 7:58 PM PST - 11 comments
New travel package
minimizes the amount of time it takes for you to get from the airport to the beach. Now you can get off the plane, and start swimming and sunbathing in no time! Isn't this amazing?
posted by yevge at 6:42 PM PST - 9 comments
What a great TV night!
The Wild Bunch on Encore followed by The Searchers on AMC. I have a sixer of Guiness and a sixer of PBR in the fridge, so before tonight is out, I'm sure I'll have an urge to put on a cowboy hat, mount up and shoot me some varmints.
All kidding aside, some nights the TV gods just seem to smiling down on me.
posted by jonmc at 6:01 PM PST - 44 comments
100 years ago today, Marconi received the first transatlantic
wireless signal. It was
reported in Nature on Dec 19, 1901. How's that for an old link?
The first repurcussion of this achievement:
legal notice to remove his equipment from Newfoundland because
ATC had 2 years left in their 50 year telegraphic monopoly. Plus ça change...
Listen to a real
spark gap transmission at 0200 UTC Dec 13 on 3550 KHz to relive history.
posted by Geo at 4:55 PM PST - 14 comments
This seems like a great idea.
Bobupndown.com started this project that is aimed at little, local charities that may have suffered cash drain because of the unprecedented [and important] WTC giving.
Shel's concept is to donate your penny jar, which is just sitting there, anyway, to a little charity in your town. It's a chance to plug your favorite little charity, too, cuz he lists them all on his site.
Shel is going to match 5% of the pledges, plus throw in his own penny jar. ... Anyway,
check it out. It seems like a really great way to spread a little holiday jingle around.
posted by jillmatrix at 4:26 PM PST - 1 comments
NASA creates the most
detailed topographic map of the Earth ever produced. The new map is a result of data gathered on shuttle mission
STS-99 in February 2000.
The catch? DOD doesnt want most of it released. (link via
Wired)
posted by Irontom at 3:39 PM PST - 8 comments
eToys is back online.
Wall Street Journal: "
Before it shut down, eToys lost hundreds of millions of dollars. But much of that cash had been spent to build a brand that made eToys one of the best-known names in online retailing. KB Toys recognized the value of the brand, and this summer acquired the defunct company's assets for $14 million," and has since relaunched the site as a skin for their own store, but with the look and feel of the original etoys.com.
posted by me3dia at 3:20 PM PST - 10 comments
[re]distributions
is a collection of art software and essays centering on PDAs and information appliances. Glad I cleaned out my Jornada at work today. Most of the artists have various other projects at their own sites, if you follow their links.
posted by Su at 2:35 PM PST - 1 comments
In an effort to keep
CitizenX alive,
Halcyon Styn is selling himself for 24 hours. He'll fly to your city and do anything you want, if you've got the cash.
Bid now, as it closes in just a couple hours. Like Hunter S said, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
posted by mathowie at 1:03 PM PST - 36 comments
Testing,
one two three. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipscing elit, diam nonnumyeiusmod tempor incidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquam eratvolupat.
(Someone shouldn't post test code on the live server - tipped-off by Molly)
posted by endquote at 12:13 PM PST - 21 comments
The Catch with Wells Fargo's Share Builder
Some of you may have seen Wells Fargo's ads touting $4 per transaction and unlimited transactions for $12. The main catch is that you cannot trade every day. From their FAQ- "ShareBuilder trades can be made the first, second, third or fourth Tuesday of each month. You select which day you would like your trade to take place when setting up your ShareBuilder Plan. In the event of a month with five Tuesdays, no ShareBuilder trades will take place on the fifth Tuesday."
When the rest of the world is going to real-time trading, why do you think Wells Fargo is pushing this? Do you think it is deceptive that this is not mentioned up-front?
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy at 11:13 AM PST - 10 comments
December 11
Where-o-where can bin Laden be?
The general belief among U.S. officials appears to be that al Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden, probably is still somewhere in Afghanistan... But, conceded a defense official, the United States has very little solid information on the whereabouts of bin Laden. "If we had a real clue, we would have already got him," he said.
posted by Rastafari at 8:56 PM PST - 9 comments
A pyramid scheme for web traffic?
ExitBlaze apparently sends traffic from one member's site to another's (or, no doubt, to other sites they must sell hits to):
Bob doesn't know it but a pop-underwindow displaying an ExitBlaze member's site has just shown up underneath the main browser window. And Bob owes it all to you!
posted by mattpfeff at 8:43 PM PST - 5 comments
As Seoul Prepares for Soccer World Cup, a Debate Is Unleashed Over
Dog Meat. Cultures collide as FIFA warns and Brigitte Bardot threatens to organize boycotts of Korea over their
Canine Cuisine. Koreans are offended. (more)...
posted by Mack Twain at 8:28 PM PST - 27 comments
NASA Tentatively OKs Second Space Tourist
"NASA and its partners in the International Space Station have agreed in principle to let a 28-year-old South African become the second paying tourist on the orbiting outpost, the U.S. space agency said on Tuesday."
Mark Shuttleworth you lucky bastard!
posted by dgeiser13 at 3:24 PM PST - 8 comments
Bush to Withdraw From ABM Treaty.
"Last week we conducted another promising test of our missile defense technology. For the good of peace, we're moving forward with an active program to determine what works and what does not work. In order to do so, we must move beyond the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a treaty that was written in a different era, for a different enemy," Bush said.
posted by Bezuhin at 2:03 PM PST - 27 comments
Turkish Despair.
Aslan, please help us! Narnia is being overtaken by people in monochromatic outfits. Oh well, I suppose it was bound to happen. $$$ (I'm sure it's all
Edmund's fault.)
posted by jacknose at 12:57 PM PST - 29 comments
Fighting the CDA
: The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom is working with one of nations most interesting erotic
photographers to overturn the portion of the CDA that ties all internet obscenity to the most restrictive definition of the most restrictive community in the nation.
posted by soulhuntre at 10:53 AM PST - 30 comments
Is E-Commerce dead, past its prime, or just resting?
This journal special issue has some interesting thoughts about the future of E-Commerce. I especially liked the
paper by Peffers. The conventional wisdom at this point is that B2C E-Commerce is viable only for certain types of products or contexts. Others (e.g.
Andy Grove, Michael Porter) seem to think that in the future, all commerce will be E-Commerce and will be integrated with physical companies. Then there is the M-Commerce angle- e.g. DoCoMo. What do you make of all of this? How will we be shopping and communicating in the future?
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy at 10:05 AM PST - 13 comments
December 10
Did the FBI fire first at Branch Davidian complex?
At least one person says that science and FLIR can prove that they did. Coming at a time when Janet Reno is trying to put some steam into a political career, will this have any negative impact on it? Will the FBI PR machine go into overdrive trying to disprove Barbara Grant's claims?
posted by MAYORBOB at 8:50 PM PST - 30 comments
Cassiopaea Cult Lead By Cold War Physicist
This is a Florida cult that talks to aliens on a Quija board. The aliens warn the cult members that the rest of us are possessed by Lizards from another dimension. Anyway, the cult is lead by an old Cold War era high-energy physicist from Poland. Is it me, or should I worry that this kind of a person has a web site with Armageddon in the title bar? Also, the obligatory parody site is at
64.27.67.250.
posted by StormBear at 8:37 PM PST - 2 comments
Pranksters at Yahoo?
Something strikes me about this
Yahoo Winter Vacation Deals flash ad that sometimes appears on the right hand side of news story pages like
this one. Is there something going on here, or do I need to have my (ahem) head examined?
(Flash required)
posted by SilentSalamander at 4:10 PM PST - 25 comments
televised suicide: the goofiest bin laden rumor yet?
good lord. the story claims bin laden is going to kill himself on tv to trigger attacks on monuments around the world. even the tabloids have been staying away from the attacks, for the most part. but when
this story went by on a ticker while i was surfing, i just had to look. what's the strangest post-attack rumor you've heard so far? i want obscure, here, people, not anything about malls on halloween.
posted by onthestereo at 2:52 PM PST - 16 comments
Zed's dead. It's a chopper, baby.
I remember kids in the neighborhood making custom bikes. The choppers weren't the easiest to handle or most practical but they looked hella cool. Now they're selling for $2500US. Check out the showroom and the photo video gallery.
posted by suprfli at 1:42 PM PST - 9 comments
I've been eagerly anticipating the launch of
this site. So...it just went live and.....after 2 minutes of frustration (and it's not fine Lynchian weirdness either), I gave up. Is this thing still under construction or is it really that bad?
posted by davebush at 1:40 PM PST - 40 comments
Blinken Lights
the world's biggest interactive computer display, a special 20th anniversary present to itself and the city of Berlin by the Chaos Computer Club. Since Sept 12, 2001, the upper eight floors of the famous "Haus des Lehrers" (house of the teacher) have been transformed in to a huge display by arranging 144 lamps behind each of the windows. A computer controls each of the lamps independently to produce a monochrome matrix of 18 times 8 pixels. The icing on the cake, you can play pong on it via your mobile phone!
posted by riffola at 12:12 PM PST - 9 comments
Royal Madness
From Domitian of Rome (51-96) "the Emperor who tortured flies" to Maria I of Portugal (1734-1816) "the Queen who thought she was already in hell", from Erzsébet of Transylvania (±1561-1614) "the countess who bit her servants" to "Mad" Ibrahim I of Turkey (1615-1648) " the Sultan who drowned his entire harem." Here's to a saner future for up-and-comers
King Zahir Shah in Afghanistan and
King Simeon in Bulgaria, and all other
reigning monarchs.
posted by Voyageman at 9:41 AM PST - 8 comments
Travel Makes You Stupid.
"As we roam wider, we spread ourselves thinner. The greater the geographical extent of our 'known world' the lower the level of resolution at which we can know it. As the volume of information overwhelms the human capacity to make sense of it, people are compelled to adopt ever cruder filters." Does hypermobility make us more shallow? (
from openDemocracy)
posted by jacknose at 9:29 AM PST - 21 comments
Cancer Research Project
Be a part of the search for a cure to cancer:
simply download a very small, no cost, non-invasive software program that works like a screensaver: it runs when your computer isn't being used, and processes research until you need your machine.
posted by ericost at 8:04 AM PST - 17 comments
The life cycle of a list
- this isn't new, but i was wondering if anyone agrees with it. From my limited experience, i would have to say it holds true for any lists i have been on.
posted by semper at 6:31 AM PST - 10 comments
this is very odd indeed
chinese news media's flash tribute for the WTC tragedy
rough translation for the song:
elderly american goes to work
was very frightened
someone drove a plane into the building
and it fell down
but he was very fit
so he ran down 937 stairs and got away
the news people asked him to say a few words
that was all he could say
he said someone crashed a plane into the building
they were terrorists
this is bad because it affects ordinary people
posted by quarsan at 12:21 AM PST - 15 comments
December 9
Cougars:
women in their thirties, forties, fifties, maybe even sixties, going after men a decade or three younger. This article says they're a new phenomenon, and a Canadian (in fact, Torontonian) one at that. Surely not?
posted by Badmichelle at 7:59 PM PST - 20 comments
freeform light:
glowing wires, cool to the touch. uses very little power, and usable for...anything you need to light. really beautiful light sculptures waiting to be created.
posted by patricking at 6:44 PM PST - 7 comments
The 2002 Olympics have some
unintended consequences for Salt Lake City:
"Along the Wasatch Front, police say they have seen an influx of 'circuit girls' -- migratory prostitutes who travel from city to city for high-profile events -- and their pimps, typically men who exploit hookers for a healthy cut of the cash"
posted by mr_crash_davis at 1:54 PM PST - 16 comments
(some) British Muslims
- an interesting article from
Prospect describes how different generations (and classes) of British Muslims view the conflict in Afghanistan (starts as personal history; the political meat of the article is in the second half).
posted by andrew cooke at 11:37 AM PST - 2 comments
Kali.net
(once one of the world's largest Internet gaming networks) is created. Makes money. BeTech buys Kali to impress investors. BeTech stops paying for upkeep. ISPs get peeved. No more Kali.
Or is there? Is this a funeral or a phoenix? And is there anything else on the 'Net about this? I'm coming up with bupkus.
posted by ZachsMind at 9:49 AM PST - 1 comments
A sunken megalithic city, perhaps 6,000 years old, has been sonar-photographed with an underwater sub, off the coast of Cuba, 2100 feet down. Well, at least they didn't describe it as 'cyclopean'. Nor is there any word on whether its architectural angles are
non-Euclidean. [More inside]
posted by Slithy_Tove at 3:48 AM PST - 23 comments
December 8
Italy privatizes its culture.
At least that's what will happen when a bill turning management of all of its museums sails through the Parliament this week. Critics of the Berlesconi-driven measure say that trying to turn culture into a profit center is foolish as there are only a few attractions that make any money now.
posted by MAYORBOB at 11:38 PM PST - 4 comments
Has Osama bin Lying?
Sound as though the bearded one's been caught on video being aware of the WTC attack and surprised at the extent of the damage. And what about the London Times story early Saturday morning that Omar the tent maker has been put under house arrest? Go figure!
posted by marc-hamilton at 11:36 PM PST - 14 comments
The inimitable Glassdog
gives us yet another epehemeral prose masterpiece this time about our very own
mathowie. I'm not sure how either of the aforementioned would like it if we archived the entire piece here (there's no archive link), so check it out soon (like now).
posted by pheideaux at 10:24 PM PST - 13 comments
Does high school haunt you?
Elinor Burkett spent a year in a suburban high school to get everybody's opinion on how this "typical" school was doing. How were your high school days?
posted by jacobw at 7:57 PM PST - 29 comments
In Depth Sports Instruction
Impress the boss and in-laws with keen command of fly-fishing and golf (skimboarding and rock-climbing). Check out comprehensive Gear Consultant videos. Also handy for finally deciding on new sport to plug into the 2002 new year's resolution.
posted by Voyageman at 4:50 PM PST - 4 comments
IMDBPro
Just in case you need more information than the
Internet Movie Database provides, there's now a subscription version with advanced features like STARmeter and MOVIEmaker (billed as proprietary algorithms). Is Amazon about to take on
Variety? Or is IMDB not selling enough videos with the click throughs?
posted by samuelad at 3:20 PM PST - 24 comments
The "Stealth" Issue in e-Business
KMPG is advising pharmaceutical companies to move the e-commerce offshore..
"
With high margins on limited blockbuster products, pharmaceutical companies have long focused on the need to retain those profits through tax planning. Corporate income tax rates in the principal markets of the US, Western Europe and Japan range from 35 percent to 45 percent and higher, thereby posing a risk of draining a substantial portion of the margins from a pharmaceutical company. By structuring operations to focus key activities or assets in low tax jurisdictions such as Ireland, Puerto Rico and Singapore, a company's overall effective tax rate can be reduced. "
This may be related to their
billing department practices
KPMG PEAT MARWICK TO PAY THE UNITED STATES OVER $9 MILLION
FOR PREPARING FRAUDULENT MEDICARE & MEDICAID COST REPORTS
posted by headlemur at 1:49 PM PST - 4 comments
Jumping on the whole 'favorites' bandwagon, I think
Cowboy Bebop is the best show on TV. Does anyone else watch it?
What's the best thing on TV these days, in your opinion?
posted by TiggleTaggleTiger at 11:36 AM PST - 53 comments
December 7
It's a good thing Santa was endorsing Sprint.
Then the kiddies would have to sit on the lap of that Joe Friday clone they have shilling for them. What I don't get is the outrage of the parents. You mean they hadn't noticed that Xmas has become a tad commercial? Do they really think that five year olds and under really notice the cell phone logo?
posted by MAYORBOB at 11:34 PM PST - 10 comments
Many people have not yet experienced
Nardwuar the Human Serviette, one of most enthusiastic interviewers around. He's tackled
Ian MacKaye, the Degrassi Kids, Olivier Stone,
Snoop Dog and a host of others (some the interviews you can also
listen to or
watch). Do I dare ask...who is your favorite interviewer?
posted by gluechunk at 4:40 PM PST - 28 comments
Probably the most clearheaded editorial on the John walker case.
Though it may not be fashionable or politically correct to say it, Dan Kennedy has articulated my feelings on this issue quite well. It may be a few days old but this event still sticks in my craw, and my craw is full at the moment. IMO, this Walker is the creation of a deadly cocktail of affluence, over-indulgent parenting, psuedo-multi-culturalism run amok and a societal unwillingness to make any moral judgements whatsoever. The only good outcome of 9/11 is that maybe, just maybe that day snapped some of us out of that mindset for good.
posted by jonmc at 4:08 PM PST - 69 comments
Typographic Tree.
"A small signpost invites users to sing to the mushrooms which sit on top of a 5' tree stump. As soon as a visitor begins a tree begins to grow. Using nothing but the tone and volume of their voice they can control every aspect of the trees growth. It's size, complexity, colour and even the amount of flowers in bloom." I'm not sure why it's 'typographic,' but still very pretty.
posted by Su at 2:31 PM PST - 3 comments
Secrets of the Cold War in Space.
Deep Cold is an website with detailed renderings, quicktime movies and information about the ideas and concepts being developed for both U.S. and Soviet presences in space during the cold war.
posted by moz at 12:55 PM PST - 4 comments
"Fine! I'll do it!"
Man cuts off the penis. There, I did it. It has been 2 days since the last penis-related post. This is the most recent penis-related post.
Dear Penis-amputating man:
That thing there, in the Bible,
it's a metaphor!
Love,
Jesus
posted by jaysoucy at 11:56 AM PST - 37 comments
Obviously Bud Selig is lying to Congress.
There's no way anyone believes that MLB lost $232 million last year despite attendance being up and quality being high. But the question is, what is the punishment for a man like Selig blatantly perjuring himself to our representatives? Can he go to jail?
posted by tsarfan at 11:20 AM PST - 26 comments
Been to a USGS site today?
What about your favorite
national park site? Probably not, since all are part of the
U.S. Department of the Interior, whose external network connections have been severed due to electronic security concerns raised by the court in the case
Cobell v. Norton (formerly Cobell v. Babbitt).
With no external email or access to the Internet could you do your job? How dependent is your workplace on electronic information access?
(Since all their websites are down, I have no direct link to post. A copy of the memo was sent to the members by the admin of a USGS email distribution list.)
posted by carobe at 10:27 AM PST - 16 comments
Trillian, one of the better chat programs out there, just got better. Version 0.70 is now available and it runs smoothly and looks great.
posted by davehat at 8:25 AM PST - 37 comments
Four Astronauts and a Kitten
is the best book about four astronauts (a mother-daughter team and twin teens) and a cat you're likely to read this year. The actual title is much longer, but if you
read the book, you'll understand all. And they say vanity press is a bad idea . . .
posted by vraxoin at 7:22 AM PST - 14 comments
Rapid Detox
"In the world of addiction medicine, no technique for treating
heroin users has ever been more controversial" According to the article, in the US, 980,000 use
heroin, 175,000 are enrolled in government programs receiving daily dose of
methadone, and only 1,000
rapid detox procedures are done a year. "Patients want it" Dr. Gevirtz says, "because it gives them a compassionate and comfortable way to get clean." Shouldn't they get it?
posted by Voyageman at 7:09 AM PST - 19 comments
In light of the
Case Against Henry Kissinger, the National Security Archive published a collection of previously censored
papers which show Ford and Kissinger approved the illegal invasion of East Timor, consciously “influence[d]” public opinion on the matter and continue to
lie about the entire affair.
posted by raaka at 4:06 AM PST - 9 comments
December 6
Upscale McDonalds?
Could this work? It looks like such a waste of investment dollars its not funny. This reminds me of the big plans McDee's had to combine its restaurants with gas stations. I don't think most if not any of those are around anymore.
posted by skallas at 11:20 PM PST - 72 comments
So some tigers in China
aren't getting any action when they should be. As a
last ditch effort, they will be given the miracle drug, Viagra. Just for kicks, who thinks it'll work? (side note: the last paragraph in the article lends a whole new meaning to "Discovery Channel")
posted by dai at 9:01 PM PST - 12 comments
Is The Advocate making too much of "the openly gay" Ian McKellen playing Gandalf?
"An openly gay man has been invited to play the lead role in the fantasy lives of the world’s children, for decades to come. What’s more heroic than that?" Or, as Armistead Maupin puts it: "I think the fact that an openly gay actor is going to have his face all over Burger King cups in a matter of months is really quite significant.”
As an interesting contrast,
here's McKellen, from his own website, on a certain Kenobi who felt that "It was not appropriate...for gay people to talk publicly about their sexuality nor to campaign openly for law reform."
posted by adrober at 8:20 PM PST - 26 comments
"Pierre Boulez
was sleeping in his five star Swiss hotel when police dragged him from bed and informed him he was on their national list of terrorist suspects." Inflicting audible harm on people, perhaps? Sheesh, what next?
posted by mmarcos at 5:14 PM PST - 5 comments
Ok.
We know which albums you liked, but what was the single best
concert you saw this year, and very importantly, why?
posted by tcobretti at 4:50 PM PST - 105 comments
Once upon a time,
SPORTSJONES was an up-and-coming website. Major media sources hailed it: "original, offbeat, and thought-provoking," a site "that could shake the world," "cerebral sports journalism," "the thinking fan's sports site." Then one day
ESPN/Disney bought it, the site died, and the writers joined the ESPN staff. I've yet to find a replacement. Where can I turn for substantial writing on sports and sports culture?
posted by jacknose at 2:32 PM PST - 12 comments
This
ruined my day. The Yankees are going to buy another World Series. If I ever hear that the Yankees do not buy championship again I am going to poop my pants. They do buy championships. Man, do they suck.
posted by aj100 at 12:55 PM PST - 58 comments
DK2
The Dark Kinight Strikes Again came out yesterday and all I can say is "wow!" The first issue of this three issue limited series alone was worth the 15 year wait. What took The Dark Knight Returns a whole limited series to get to, happens in the last few pages of DKSA. It even has a
Flash trailer. Frank Miller and Lynn Varley do it again.
posted by rathikd at 12:29 PM PST - 19 comments
Is Amelie a racist tract?
Yes, it paints a homogenous portrait of Paris, but it's also obviously a fairy tale. Jeunet's other films have had a similar cultural makeup yet were never decried as racist - but they were not this successful. Does the outrageous success of the film mean that it should be more representative of France? Should we demand a retroactive revision of a film's intent as it does more business?
posted by videodrome at 12:23 PM PST - 40 comments
Egreetings lowers the portcullis.
No longer can you send that flishy-Flashy virtual birthday card for free. Now you've got to sign up as an Egreetings member to access all the cards ($12 per year). Luckily, many of their cards are still free, including the indispensable
farting section. Has anyone, so far, spent money on an internet service that was once free but
now costs something?
posted by scarabic at 11:46 AM PST - 21 comments
Talk about not getting it...
"Polaroid Corp., which slashed jobs and retiree benefits before filing for bankruptcy protection in October, wants to reward top executives with up to $19 million in bonuses and incentives as it dismantles the instant camera and film maker to pay off creditors."
Clueless or evil? You make the call...
posted by kasnj at 11:39 AM PST - 21 comments
Joss Whedon,
only a few weeks ago, brought audiences what was arguably the best hour in television history with the musical episode. Then, last week, he brought us
a shameful don't-do-drugs piece of drivel. Has the best-written show on television finally gone bad, along with Willow?
I know there was a Buffy thread a couple of months ago, but so much has changed since then...
posted by bingo at 9:38 AM PST - 54 comments
We've had plenty of posts about dogs. . .we've had some posts about mercury. . . .but
this has not been posted as yet, as far as my searches of the site can deduct. No compelling reason to post this, other than it's in my occupational field and it's interesting.
posted by Danf at 7:12 AM PST - 8 comments
Strom is 99.
This guy is supposedly so frail, he has to live at the hospital and be wheeled to the Senate in the morning, but the picture makes him look pretty good. And black.
posted by pracowity at 6:45 AM PST - 25 comments
December 5
Real Cinephiles Prefer Reading "Cahiers du Cinema" to Going to the Movies:
I stopped reading
Cahiers du Cinema - the famously dogmatic French film journal where Godard, Truffaut, Resnais and Rohmer cut their teeth - a few years ago, when it got too arty-farty for its own good.
Well, it's slowly becoming essential again. Their website is
trés chic, intelectually challenging and a welcome antidote to the usual online movie-reviewing clowns. Or is it still a load of pretentious rubbish?
(In French, but with a lovely intro, lots of cool stills and a Quicktime interview, in English, with underrated director Paul Verhoeven)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:51 PM PST - 22 comments
The romance versus the reality of man in space.
According to this article, unless NASA gets an innoculation of a whole bunch of money, we are likely to be limited to maintaining no more than three longterm residents of the space station we are committed to building. How does this bode for our Star Trek vision?
posted by MAYORBOB at 8:35 PM PST - 18 comments
Great 'The Prisoner' site -
I just recently got into this BBC sci-fi/paranoia classic on my local
PBS affiliate, so I was glad to find this lovingly done fan site. Anyone else have a pet obsessive fan site for a favorite TV show? SNPP.com comes to mind, of course, but I'm interested in the less famous and less frequented places.
posted by GriffX at 7:42 PM PST - 18 comments
A particularly chilling case of road rage
has been the focus of the Chicago biking community for the past couple of years. Yesterday, the jury
came down with a first-degree murder verdict for Carnell Fitzpatrick, who, in April of 1999, deliberately drove down and killed bike messenger Tom McBride after an altercation at a stoplight.
The rights of bicyclists in urban areas has always been a contentious issue. Because of this verdict, drivers will no doubtedly show more restraint in taking their anger out on street cyclists, though likely more out of fear than respect. While I'm happy to see a victory for the cyclists, it's that last part that worries me.
posted by sandor at 4:52 PM PST - 41 comments
The Declaration of Independence in American
by H.L. Mencken, circa 1921. A quote: "When things get so balled up that the people of a country have to cut loose from some other country, and go it on their own hook, without asking no permission from nobody, excepting maybe God Almighty, then they ought to let everybody know why they done it, so that everybody can see they are on the level, and not trying to put nothing over on nobody." Gangbusters!
posted by acridrabbit at 3:54 PM PST - 26 comments
If you were expecting the Lord of the Rings movie to receive as much if not more scrutiny from Conservative Christians
as Harry Potter did you’re in for a surprise. Despite LOTR being filled with violence and intense fantasy imagery few churches or religious watch-god groups will be condemning the fantasy epic
like they did the occult heavy, yet kid-friendly Harry Potter flick.
The reason is simple:
Tolkien was a devout Christian.
In fact, Tolkien persuaded C.S. Lewis, who himself later wrote several Christian classics, to become a Christian. The two are credited with paving the way for a new genre of devotional literature, influencing authors like Charles Williams, T.S. Eliot, G.K. Chesteron and Dorothy Sayers.
Fortunately for most Tolkien doesn’t let Christian imagery dribble into his stories
the way C.S. Lewis did. So expect religous LOTR friendly reviews from all with the possible exception of the
ChildCare Action Project. One has to wonder though - if Harry Potter author, J. K. Rowling, was more publicly religious would her books be as controversial?
posted by wfrgms at 2:21 PM PST - 38 comments
Reflections.
A Flash game that just wasted some of my work day. Now you can waste some of yours. Align the mirrors to hit the lights, just don't hit the bombs.
posted by eyeballkid at 1:27 PM PST - 52 comments
Scooby Doo
stage play debuts in Toronto and former
Kids In The Hall alumni are implicated in its production. Deconstructed French farce, post-modernism run amuck, or yet another sign of the impending teevee apocalyse? (via
BoingBoing)
posted by MrBaliHai at 12:54 PM PST - 1 comments
Have a business? Want its site listed on Yahoo? From this point on, you have to use
Yahoo! Express, which means
you have to pay $299 for them to just
consider your site. Does this diminish the validity of Yahoo's listings, or is this just the inevitable result of the dot-com decline?
posted by mrbula at 9:52 AM PST - 14 comments
Shut The Fuck Up
is an "open letter to men in the movement" written by activist
Dan Spalding about the sexist behavior of men in left-leaning groups. They say "When the left forms a firing squad they form it in a circle," but I think this is nurturing constructive criticism, a far cry from the venom that often accompanies such discourse.
posted by djacobs at 9:47 AM PST - 40 comments
Are the days of speculative domain buying and hoarding over? On the one hand we've got
places that still expect to get $40,000 for lame domain names like NY1.info and then there's
splorp.com's domain name of the week, which provides some pretty cool names for the taking.
How many domain names do you own? I only own two, not counting suffix variations and my wife's business domain, but I know some people who have
lots more. My office mate routinely registers domain names (just the other day we were talking about how
rollajoin.com would be a funny name for
a database tutorial site and he registered it that night), and I have another friend who owns
laid-off.com and
wants to give it away. So are domain names still gold or have they been reduced to trinkets?
posted by mccreath at 8:47 AM PST - 52 comments
A'll be bach – Terminiator 3 is coming!!!
With a budget projected to be more than $170 million, Daily Variety reports that Schwarzenegger is working out the final contract details to star in the third installment, with Jonathan Mostow replacing James Cameron as director.
Shooting on the film is expected to begin in April ...
posted by Brilliantcrank at 8:25 AM PST - 39 comments
Cow Belching
and it's effect on the Environment. Not only is it rude, but it also bad for the environment.
posted by semper at 7:58 AM PST - 20 comments
Most Dangerous Job..
Israeli bus driver. Not only at risk from normal driveing hazzards but being blown up by terrorists, a favorite target. Is there a memorial for the fallen comrades or do they "take care of their own" in a secret bus driver society. What other low profile low skill jobs go unrecognized for the ultimate sacrifice?
posted by stbalbach at 7:00 AM PST - 11 comments
Fashion & Farm Sex
Benneton Group company
Sisley is well known for ...well, uhm... different images in advertising campaigns. Right now they're using cute animals and evil girls... What do you think about that?
posted by heimkonsole at 2:41 AM PST - 40 comments
a silly place...
either someone has waaaaay to much time on their hands or this is the coolest thing i've seen for ages.
For those of you who want more explanation think
Monty Python but in
Lego. it's a movie - so time taken to view this movie is depending on whether your connection to the interweb is
butane or
coal fired. I've searched the archives and not found this particuar link - but it is a few months old, so apologies to any who have seen it before.
I've not been accused of anything for a while.
posted by Spoon at 2:32 AM PST - 13 comments
December 4
Let us now bandy about statistics.
NPR (et al.) has released a poll concerning beliefs about civil liberties in the wake of You Know What and the subsequent military response, as well as another (less in-depth) supplement on
Military Tribunals. Also, Talk of the Nation did an excellent
program (RealAudio) on the subject. Since we're going to continue discussing it anyway, we may as well be informed.
posted by Hildago at 5:36 PM PST - 12 comments
At $92.60 a Vote, Bloomberg Shatters an Election Record.
Ross Perot spent about $3.59 per vote in his 1992 presidential race. The $68,968,185 price tag was more than Forbes and Corzine spent on their 2000 campaigns. Do candidates that essentially buy their elections gross you out, or do you feel better knowing that their money didn't come from PACs?
posted by jennak at 3:34 PM PST - 29 comments
Consult The Dead Parrot
The dead parrot will provide advice on finance, romance, religion, careers, and miscellaneous concerns, apparently. Sample: (Q) I just checked the best-before date on the pot of cream in the refrigerator and it's due to go off tomorrow morning. What can I do with it at such short notice? I don't own a whisk. (answer
inside)
posted by feelinglistless at 2:25 PM PST - 10 comments
Could you join The Specials?
No, not
those Specials,
these Specials. If you live in and around London and have 96 hours to spare annually, this might be just the volunteer track for you. However, participation in the Special Constabulary of the Metropolitan Police Force is steadily shrinking despite enthusiastic
members and recent attempts at
compensation.
So is this kind of community stewardship no longer valid? And with the current re-appreciation of U.S. policemen, could a similar program work here in the states? I mean, the
Flash animation almost swayed me...
posted by grabbingsand at 2:05 PM PST - 5 comments
Their learnding.
"American 15-year-olds rank average in reading, math and science skills among their peers in highly industrialized nations, results the U.S. education secretary says are unacceptable." The article does not speculate on the causes of the poor performance. What do you think? Underpaid, under-qualified teachers? Too much TV? Math-Class-Is-Tough Barbie?
posted by gazingus at 1:03 PM PST - 41 comments
Travis and his package
Ubiquitous
Calvin Klein underwear model
Travis Fimmel does a meet and greet with his fans. "Secure at the front of the roped-off line, Malia Middler, 28, from San Francisco, was found giggling, blushing and excited. She squealed lustfully, 'I want to ask him if it's real!'"
posted by timothompson at 10:59 AM PST - 29 comments
Something for your holiday entertainment.
Susan has been doing this site every year for 4 or 5 years now, and I still love it. She features her own ornament collection, and sometimes even her own pets, in a holiday themed, Flash-based Advent calendar, that was one of the best Flash sites around in the olden days. Click on each day of the calendar throughout the month of December.
posted by Lynsey at 10:37 AM PST - 4 comments
Why Don't People Read Newspapers from Other Countries?
The early promise of the Web was that it would create a smaller world. Yet, most individuals read their local newspaper or their favorite national newspaper online. For example, most people I speak to are surprised that there are English newspapers in Pakistan- there are at least two good ones-
Dawn and
The Friday Times. I see a lot of posts on MeFi from UK papers such as The Guardian and also from Australian papers. How about the English newspapers from the rest of the world? Have we stopped browsing?
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy at 10:03 AM PST - 45 comments
Here Comes the Sun
Beware NY Times. Watch your flanks NY liberal establishment.
Lord Conrad Black to back
Smarter Times Ira Stoll and co in new conservative daily paper. Will they make it? (PS. Apparently are looking for editorial staff "willing to work long hours in an entrepreneurial, start-up environment") Start spreadin' the news, these little town blues are melting away, it's up to you, New York, New York...
posted by Voyageman at 7:46 AM PST - 15 comments
Teachers jailed for, well, NOT teaching...
(
NYT link)
I live in Middletown, but I think this is interesting for the general crowd. Aren't teachers allowed to strike? Should they be forced to return to work without a contract?
Should they be thrown in jail because the school board won't work with them on a contract?
posted by rich at 6:57 AM PST - 39 comments
SpacecraftKits.com
has an interesting way of keeping their costs low. They do it
"through mass production, and by putting the extensive assembly instructions and fact sheets ... online, rather than mailing them to you." I think that's a great idea. That way if they want to revise some part of the instructions, or add schematics or notes or ideas from people who might have experienced problems, they can allow
all customers to see the new instructions without having to send recall notices or try to track exactly who owns their product. This gives a company the ability to hyperlink instructions with tons of additional information, as well as definitions and photographs. I really think all toy manufacturers should do this. It would also be great for furniture makers - Sauder and those places that make built-it-yourself desks and bookcases, etc. That way you could order that missing bolt or screw or broken piece of shelving directly from the manufacturer ...
posted by GatorDavid at 6:55 AM PST - 3 comments
"Found Magazine Celebrates the Mystery of Castoff Notes."
The Washington Post calls Found
"...an amazing new magazine that prints odd items found in streets, schools, prisons, Kinko's shops and laundromats across America. It's a treasury of trash, a wonderfully weird collection of screeds, snapshots, to-do lists, leaflets, drawings, diaries and love letters. Taken together, they provide a fascinating glimpse into the wackier depths of America's collective subconscious." What wonderfully weird stuff have you found?
posted by Carol Anne at 6:44 AM PST - 32 comments
Run Juice Run!!!
O.J. Simpson's house raided by the FBI and DEA! Yeah, I know, a news story, but its O.J.! O.J. suspected in Ecstasy Drug Ring. Along with a few other illegal activities. Is this his third strike???
posted by da5id at 5:28 AM PST - 38 comments
Want to escape CNN's round-the-clock war coverage? Don't head for the theater.
Faster than Lee Marvin could say "Dirty Dozen," Hollywood is rounding up its good-looking troops, rallying the editing rooms, and launching a war-time celluloid offensive.
Groovy. And just when I'd started getting bored with the real deal...
posted by Bixby23 at 2:45 AM PST - 6 comments
Is your son a computer hacker?
Has your son loaded strange programs like "Flash" on the family computer? Is your son reading dangerous books like "Programming with Perl?" Is your son obsessed with "Lunix?" [sic] Hey, I read it on the web, so it
must be true.
posted by chipr at 12:09 AM PST - 26 comments
December 3
HTML code patented.
Thanks to Unicast and your friends in the US patent office. "Unicast's second patent, No. 6,314,451, covers the method of serving Internet ads using HTML code that, when downloaded by a Web browser, can be used to begin downloading dynamically- produced content." It also seems that they are ready to get sue-happy.
posted by owillis at 11:00 PM PST - 4 comments
"Be accurate, be fair, be American"
is the Fox News mantra. Apparently, news with a moral slant is not only helping the Fox News ratings but many Americans
report wanting their news to be "Pro-American." When did it become unpatriotic to at least want news that attempts objectivity? Are "accuracy" and "fairness" always possible if Fox journalists must also subscribe to News Corporation's prescription as to what it means to "be American?"
posted by karlcleveland at 10:35 PM PST - 21 comments
Provigil (or Modafinil)
is a new drug, announced today. It is currently available for narcoleptics, but it is also available to the general public. It creates a state of wakefulness in users, eliminating the desire to sleep. It does this without the side effects of typical alertness/CNS stimulants (ie amphetimines, or caffeine).
Tests have shown that people can stay awake with no loss in cognitive power for up to 96 hours. This is big news -- what would you do with an extra 8 hours in your day? Unlike
IT, this really could have an impact on society.
posted by kaefer at 10:07 PM PST - 52 comments
Advice for Maine:
Piss poor education technology planning
yields
piss
poor
results.
Is anyone aware of a large scale "computer per student" education initiative
that has worked well? Teachers still need better wages don't they? (more inside)
posted by machaus at 8:23 PM PST - 16 comments
Marie's World Tour
: "
Marie is going around the world by surface transport. That is, she is taking ships, buses, trains, donkeys, and whatever local transport is available. It's not the most comfortable way of seeing the world, but it is the best way to see the world, up close. She is using cybercafes to post updates, enabling readers to travel along with her on a virtual field trip." A great travel journal with lots of interesting pictures.
posted by Calebos at 5:41 PM PST - 8 comments
Ridge Announces Security Alert
...again.
President Bush's homeland security chief asked Americans to return to a high state of alert Monday, citing threats of more terrorist attacks, possibly around "important religious observations'' this month.
posted by blissbat at 3:18 PM PST - 40 comments
Nigger.
A Black Author Hurls That Word as a Challenge. Revulsion began with the staff of his publisher over the new book by Randall Kennedy.
Revulsion? Proving the book's point then...
posted by hellinskira at 1:33 PM PST - 26 comments
Captioning Stories
Real-time captioners worked nonstop during and after the bombing. “What was so challenging about captioning live television coverage of the September 11 terrorist attack was that the emotional impact of the enormity of the horror took its toll on me personally. My sister is a flight attendant for American Airlines, one of my sons is a pilot for United Airlines, and my other son is a firefighter paramedic.... [C]aptioning the coverage of the anguish experienced by the families of the pilots, flight attendants, firefighters... was the first time in my 28-year career that I was not able to distance myself emotionally. After 16 years of work in the Los Angeles Superior Court reporting horrific criminal cases, including death-penalty cases, I thought I had the ability to steel my emotions and do my job. But nothing in my past prepared me for this”
posted by joeclark at 12:28 PM PST - 2 comments
In October 2000, in the mountains of Utah, three-year-old Gage Wayment
wandered away from his father's truck and died of exposure.
In July 2001, his father, Paul Wayment, was due to begin serving a 30-day jail sentence for negligent homicide. Instead, he
killed himself in the area where his son was found.
Now, Paul Wayment's parents have
filed two million-dollar claims against the search and rescue teams alleging that had they "conducted an appropriate and proper search," the boy and his father would still be alive.
It appears the search teams are protected by the
Utah Good Samaritan Act, unless they can be shown to have been grossly negligent, but this lawsuit may still have a
chilling effect on future search-and-rescue operations.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:28 AM PST - 29 comments
"It's a good job you have me around to provide continual cultivation."
In the early '80s, Stephen Patrick Morrissey wrote a number of letters to a pen-pal, which have been archived on the web, and they provide a look into his life before he formed the Smiths. In his letters Morrissey produces such gems as
"Spider and I? Piffle me boy. There Gops Concorde? Sputter-butter. Vienna? Hogwash." and
"It's so old-fashioned to work. I'd much rather lounge about the house all day looking fascinating. I'd rather look fascinating than have a permanent income. Am I insane?" (the underline is, apparently, morrissey's.)
posted by moz at 10:43 AM PST - 14 comments
Pre-Fab George. In a fascinating sidelight, it turns out George Harrison and his brother Pete actually
visited the U.S. for a couple of weeks in 1963, visiting George's sister, who lived in a small town in rural southern Illinois. Lots of history was made there: He bought the album containing the original version of "Got My Mind Set On You," which he would cover 25 years later; he bought his first
Rickenbacker guitar, the sound of which would change
rock music, and little WFRX, West Frankfort, became the first U.S. radio station to play the Beatles, thanks to lobbying by George and his sister. Not to mention he played a nearby VFW dance, sitting in with local rockers the Four Vests. There's a Tom Hanks
movie in here somewhere. Not to mention the obligatory "George Slept Here"
bed and breakfast.
posted by luser at 9:40 AM PST - 5 comments
Plastic,
the site MeFi'ers love to hate, is temporarily off the air. The site says they're moving to new servers. Given the problems their parent has, any bets on whether it reappears?
posted by tommasz at 6:56 AM PST - 14 comments
World Cup Fever!
The draw for the group stages of the FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan was made on 1st December. England got an awful draw: Argentina, Sweden and Nigeria. The USA look like they did much better: Portugal, Poland and one of the hosts, South Korea. As an Englishman, I'm pretty down about it at the moment.
posted by salmacis at 5:50 AM PST - 36 comments
December 2
anti-thesaurus
unhappy with web users who are unnecessarily drawn to your site in the pursuit of non-existent content? does it bog down your bandwidth? solution? write a metadata tag that specifically excludes certain terms from search engine hits by the simply defining them as non-words.
posted by bwg at 8:01 PM PST - 10 comments
Now here's a product who's time has come.
I spied a bag of this on the shelf of the local supermarket yesterday and an impulse buy was born. I'm munching some right now and it's quite tasty, grease, cheese, salt, serious heat, all your junk food needs in one package. This and other recent snack products like Wormz in Dirt(gummi worms rolled in Oreo crumbs) lead me to believe the food companies are hiring stoners to work in product development.I'm sure you guys can cite other examples to prove my point.
posted by jonmc at 7:07 PM PST - 21 comments
'It', or 'Ginger' is finally
here.
While official announcements will be made tomorrow morning, there are a few first looks around the web.
Officially named Segway, and overhyped for a really long time, it probably be as huge as everyone has said, but looks like it definately could make things interesting.
posted by christian at 6:47 PM PST - 226 comments
AOL Time Warner's Marketing Wizardry
: "With its Hollywood studio, Warner Bros., AOL leveraged its promotional and advertising might across its empire of Internet, cable TV, movie, music and magazine outlets to ensure that kids, parents, teens and everyone else knew that "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" was debuting in theaters Nov. 16. In the days leading up to the film's release, tracking studies showed an extraordinary 100% awareness among moviegoers that "Harry Potter" was coming."
posted by owillis at 6:23 PM PST - 18 comments
Beyond Amazon.
The latest Holt Uncensored is a review of online book stores from various regions of the U.S., including
Boulder Bookstore, with its "invaluable subsites," YogaSight.com and BuddhaSight.com,
Square Books where "You'll feel almost set down in the hot and leafy Courthouse Square of Oxford, Mississippi,"
Amazon Bookstore Cooperative ("not *that* Amazon [but] the oldest independent feminist bookstore in North America" (in Minneapolis) - and a dozen more. Do you have a favorite that was left out?
posted by ferris at 4:16 PM PST - 6 comments
Your Brain on God.
"After restoring everything to its proper working position, the techies exit, and I'm left sitting inside the utterly silent, utterly black vault. A few commands are typed into a computer outside the chamber, and selected electromagnetic fields begin gently thrumming my brain's temporal lobes. The fields are no more intense than what you'd get as by-product from an ordinary blow-dryer, but what's coming is anything but ordinary. My lobes are about to be bathed with precise wavelength patterns that are supposed to affect my mind in a stunning way, artificially inducing the sensation that I am seeing God. "
posted by atom128 at 3:25 PM PST - 23 comments
Another major site buried by Vesuvius (but in the Bronze Age 1750BC!) has been
discovered. Experts say it could be the world's best preserved early Bronze Age village. Among the items found were the bones of hams, a hat decorated with the teeth of a wild boar and a cage which had been raised six feet off the ground - probably to protect it from dogs - containing the remains of pregnant goats. Before this we had only holes in the ground where stakes had been, to show us what a Bronze Age village had been like.
posted by stbalbach at 12:44 PM PST - 5 comments
An American Taliban
Abdul Hamid, age 20, is an American. He is not a naturalized citizen or disaffected Arab-American youth rebelling against Western culture. He is a white, educated-sounding, apparently middle-class American, a convert to Islam who came to Afghanistan six months ago to help the Taliban build a “true Islamic state.” The question is, how long before the movie comes out?
Wonder what his parents think...
posted by Rastafari at 10:21 AM PST - 23 comments
Kobe Bryant's favorite spread.
*Insert joke here* After a long, exhausting day of running drills in practice and shooting free throws, nothing spells refreshment quite like N-U-T-E-L-L-A. Maybe
Cookie Dough Sport wasn't so far off the mark. Plus, the rest of the page is truly frightening.
posted by machaus at 9:50 AM PST - 15 comments
The healthiest states in America
"Louisiana finished last, preceded by Mississippi (49), South Carolina (48), West Virginia (47), and Florida (46)... Minnesota captured first place by scoring highest overall in categories measuring access to health care, disability, disease, mortality, and occupational safety." full report
here.
posted by kliuless at 6:24 AM PST - 9 comments
Stadium Rock largely passed me by.
Bit of Bon Jovi, that's my lot. But I can't help but love the scale of the concerts -- big walled off field with thirty thousand people baying for the blood of a group of men collectively called 'Scorpion'. But even the hardened rockers I suspect (I think) arn't too enamoured with these power ballads. I do have a soft spot for Poison's 'Every Rose Has Its Thorn' though.
posted by feelinglistless at 3:20 AM PST - 18 comments
December 1
Russian Roulette.
AIDS educators and activists justifiably decry
this phenomenon as irresponsible and self-destructive, and while "extreme sex" is very much a subculture, habitual unsafe sex is probably
much more common than most people would care to admit. Is unsafe sex the dirty little secret of the first post-AIDS generation, some kind of backlash against coming of age in a world where sex can kill? Or is it merely the "It can't happen to me" hubris of those who never saw the initial devistation?
posted by hipstertrash at 5:45 PM PST - 4 comments
AIDS Timeline:1926-Present
with comprehensive links, thanks to Sister Mary Elizabeth of the Sisters of St. Elizabeth of Hungary and
AEGIS (AIDS Education Global Information System), "...a service the Centers for Disease Control calls 'the best of its kind'..." (See How Aegis Began) People making a difference.
posted by Voyageman at 5:02 PM PST - 1 comments
What is best for AIDS orphans?
For many children around the globe, not only do they face a life without one or more parents because of AIDS/HIV, they also face the stigma of carrying the virus themselves.....
posted by bunnyfire at 3:58 PM PST - 1 comments
AIDS cases in US Prisons
are being diagnosed at 5 times the rate of the rest of the population. Prisoners with AIDS face discrimination, abuse and are denied access to health care and medication, on top of all the other abuses prisoners in the US face every day.
From
HIV+ Magazine:
"African-American women, incarcerated faster than any other group, also have the highest HIV infection rate among women, both in and out of prison. Women make up a greater percentage of the HIV-positive prison population than men do, an overlooked issue. Yet prisons continue to be built at an alarming rate, although not fast enough to alleviate the miserable conditions of prison overcrowding. In California all federal prisons operate at more than 200 percent capacity."
Thanks California Prison Focus and Act UP NY's for links and info.
posted by djacobs at 3:35 PM PST - 1 comments
Psychiatrists Not Against AIDS
In Portugal and other European countries, although the State provides free needles, free medically-assisted clinics where addicts can shoot up in a safe environment, it's the medical establishment's attitudes that are holding up the fight against AIDS. A very recent case: despite free, no-questions-asked methadone(a well-known heroin replacement)most psychiatrists refuse to prescribe it.
Is this just a European problem?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:42 PM PST - 6 comments
CCR5
This gene encodes for a protein on T cells that allows HIV to enter and replicate. It's also another reason why AIDS has less of an effect on European populations - 10-15% of Northern Europeans carry a defect that doesn't allow the attachment, so 1% or so is homozygous for the 'faulty' gene and appears to be completely resistant to HIV/AIDS.
posted by phoenix enflamed at 12:01 PM PST - 1 comments
"HIV is a metaphor for a lot of quasi-related phenomena,"
says Val Turner, an AIDS analyst and senior consultant in emergency medicine at the Royal Perth Hospital in Perth, Australia. "No one has ever proved its existence as a virus."
Does this movement/theory/philosophy have any power behind it? It's scary nonetheless.
posted by o2b at 11:39 AM PST - 4 comments
Balm in Gilead
is an organization that hopes to mobilize Black churches into becoming community centers and resources for HIV/AIDS in African-American communities. While I applaud their efforts (especially considering how long Black churches remained silent on the impact of AIDS/HIV on our communities), their
choice of hymn leaves a bit to be desired.
posted by likorish at 10:39 AM PST - 4 comments
The AIDS Memorial Quilt
has an official website. Its
quilt image database is browsable and searchable by name, and includes images of over 42,960 individual panels, each in honor of a lost loved one.
It's an utterly amazing testament to those claimed by the disease, and to those who have survived them.
posted by mattpfeff at 8:59 AM PST - 2 comments
Sensing that improved drug treatments were breeding a new recklessness, the AIDS Committee of Toronto launched an ad campaign, aimed at gay males, with an old message:
use a condom. Are people today aware of the dangers of unsafe sex, or is this simply one of those messages that can't be repeated enough?
posted by transient at 8:36 AM PST - 2 comments
The Origins of AIDS
AIDS has become such a commonplace thing, hence the need for days like today. When is the last time you thought of how HIV/AIDS came about? Have you ever? Such interesting tidbits as the fact that it's been documented to 1959 can be found here.
posted by ashbury at 3:16 AM PST - 5 comments
Injection drug use causes HIV, and we know how to prevent it . . . but it's not happening
In the US, 29% of HIV infections are the result of injection drug use (IDU). Preventing IDU HIV infections can be done, and has been done, through needle exchange programs. Only problem: These programs are typically illegal and can't be funded with Federal AIDS prevention monies. The majority of children with AIDS, who make terribly sympathetic "victims of AIDS"--witness the 1990 Ryan White AIDS CARE Act--are the children of injection drug users. We'll spend money to take care of these sick children, but we won't spend money to prevent then from getting sick (to say nothing of preventing their parents from getting sick and dying). What's wrong here?
posted by donovan at 2:32 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
To celebrate
World AIDS Day, MetaFilter is going to focus solely on HIV and AIDS related posts for the next 24 hours. Like last year's
Day Without Weblogs on MetaFilter, this year's
Link and Think project asks everyone to think about the issues surrounding this disease, how it has affected you, others, and the world. Feel free to share information on prevention, research, or anything else related to the topic at hand.
posted by mathowie at 12:00 AM PST - 4 comments
